Humiliation in Madrid
Madrid, Wednesday
Germany coach Joachim Low was at a loss to explain his side’s humiliating 6-0 defeat to Spain on Tuesday which caused them to miss out on a place in the final four of the Nations League.
Low’s side have been on a downward path since crashing out in the group stage at the 2018 World Cup and have won only three of their last eight internationals.
They went into Tuesday’s decisive game top of League A4 after beating Ukraine and a draw would have booked their place in the final four, but they fell three goals down by half-time and performed even worse in the second half.
‘I really don’t know what happened to the team,’ Low told reporters after Germany’s heaviest defeat in 89 years and their worst in competitive football.
‘We had hardly any chances and we didn’t win a single individual battle out on the pitch... this has been a black day for us.
‘In the second half we tried to press them high up the pitch to score and get back into the game but Spain played far better than us, they were much faster and played with more precision.
‘We said before the game that we trusted in the players in our squad and that we were on the right track, but today we saw that we are not progressing as well as we had thought after our last few games.’
Manchester City forward Ferran Torres scored a hat-trick for the hosts in an emphatic victory against the 2014 world champions.
Germany’s only five-goal loss in a competitive game had been West Germany’s 8-3 defeat to Hungary at the 1954 World Cup group stage - West Germany went on to beat Hungary in the final.
In non-competitive matches, Germany had also lost 6-0 to Austria in a friendly in 1931.
Midfielder Serge Gnabry, who started on Tuesday night, added: ‘Nothing worked for us tonight. We couldn’t control them, they deserved to beat us as they did.
‘Spain did everything well and we did nothing right. We don’t know what level we’re at right now. ‘It’s not normal to lose a match by so many goals.’
Real Madrid playmaker Toni Kross also did not mince his words when asked about where this defeat ranked in his career. ‘This is definitely one of the worst defeats of my career. It hurts.’ -AFP
