2026 World Cup Team Chronicle·Germany: What they need is not a revival slogan, but calmness in the game

Germany is still a top-four team.

But I don't put them in the top tier.

This sentence would have seemed offensive more than ten years ago. German football should have been associated with championships. In the rainy war in Bern in 1954, Beckenbauer in 1974, Matthaus in 1990, and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Gotze stopped his chest and shot with his left foot in the 113th minute. The ball was very German: not loud, not cartoony, not like a gong of fate, but like a machine completing what it was supposed to do at the last moment.

The Germans are the best at turning a game into an industrial product. The corners are neat, the screws are tightened, and the final delivery is on time.

But in 2018, their group was eliminated. In 2022, another group exit. The filter of "Germany will always get through it" shattered loudly.

Today's Germany is certainly not lacking in talent. Beautiful even.

Musiala picked up the ball at the front of the penalty area, as if walking on thin ice. As soon as the others stretched out their feet, he had already passed through the gap. Wirtz is another kind of smart. He knows who to give the next kick to before catching the ball. Passing the ball is like gently pushing open a door. Havertz can play as a center forward or drop back as a wall. Kimmich's skills and experience are still there, and defenders such as Rudiger, Tha, and Schlotterbeck are also physically strong enough to handle it.

The problem in Germany is not whether there are people.

The question is whether they can get it back to their own pace once the game gets messed up.

At its best, this Germany team is reminiscent of the old order. The frontcourt hit the wall continuously in a small area, the wing was covered, the ribs were inserted, and an opening suddenly appeared at the front of the penalty area. For five minutes, you feel like they're back at it again: not necessarily flashy, but every step of the way useful.

Then the next section, they'll suddenly lose distance.

The midfielder pressed too high, and the two full-backs stepped up at the same time, leaving a large space behind the midfielder. When the opponent's first counterattack came out, the German defender had to run back. If you run back once, you may not be able to run back a second time. This is the case in the knockout rounds of the World Cup. A beautiful 30 minutes may not be enough, but a dangerous 10 minutes is enough to kill.

What Nagelsmann wants to solve is not to "make Germany play well."

Germany can already play well.

What he has to solve is: how to stop when leading, how to speed up when falling behind, who stands in the penalty area when facing low defense, who is the first to foul when facing counterattacks, and who is the first to make up for it. These things may sound disgraceful, but Germany has won with these things before.

Now I have to learn it again.

Musiala and Wirtz are the ceiling for this team. One is responsible for turning a dead situation into a living situation, and the other is responsible for turning a living situation into opportunities. But there must be someone behind them to clear the ground for them. Midfielders like Andrich, Gross, Pavlovic, and Stiller are not just passers, they have to decide whether Germany can regain the game within 5 seconds of losing the ball.

Germany's best path to winning the championship is to make the game "calculable" again.

There can be uncountable moments in the frontcourt. Musiala changed direction once, Wirtz made a pass, and Havertz stepped in later. But the whole must be calculable. When the full-backs come forward, when the central defenders attack, and when the midfielder commits a foul, you cannot rely on your mood on the spot.

My judgment for Germany is: the semi-finals have the upper limit of winning the championship in an upset, but they are not the most stable championship.

They may have played the most beautiful half-hour of the tournament, or they may have played the most dangerous ten minutes in the same game. If Germany wants to be Germany again, it can't just rely on young talent to light up the game. The genius lights the lamp and the system keeps vigil.

Without the second half of the sentence, Germany would not have reached the end.

2026 Germany list (organized by position)

Note: The following is the current team organized as of April 2026 based on official competitions and regular national team recruitment in the past two years. The final 26 people are subject to official registration.

• Goalkeepers: Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Oliver Bowman, Alexander Nuber
• Defenders: Antonio Rudiger, Yonatan Tower, Nico Schlotterback, Waldemar Anton, Joshua Kimmich, David Laum, Maximilian Mittelstadt, Benjamin Henrichs
• Midfielder: Florian Wirtz, Jamal Musiala, Robert Andrich, Pascal Gross, Aleksandar Pavlovich, Angelo Stiller, Leon Goretzka
• Forwards: Kai Havertz, Niklas Felkruger, Leroy Sane, Serge Gnabry, Karim Adeyemi, Denis Ondaev, Maximilian Baier

If you also like to watch the World Cup from the perspective of formations and roles, you can play a game here: https://wordlecup.today/en/football/