Defeat against Portugal: Captain Kimmich speaks frankly

Even Joshua Kimmich rarely speaks in his official capacity while still sweating. After his 100th international match, however, the 30-year-old felt compelled to speak frankly. Julian Nagelsmann was thus spared an immediate critique of the team's performance. His manager took care of that. "Josh," Nagelsmann praised the player, "found true words."

The national coach's internal team review follows, aiming to get the battered team at least somewhat into shape for the third-place match on Sunday afternoon in Stuttgart. He said he has "no desire to beat the team up." Nagelsmann didn't sound as if he considered his mental rebuilding work an easy task: "Psychologically, it's no big deal that we're now playing for third place." That sounded somewhat fatalistic.

Even the German virtues were missing

Kimmich, who was one of the least weak German players in Munich's 2-1 Nations League semi-final against Portugal, is said to have been even more explicit in his tone than he was afterwards in the interview zone: "You didn't notice that we had a winning mentality, that we were hungry, that we wanted to reach the final."

Nagelsmann's predecessor , Joachim Löw, must have traveled to every German state a hundred times as a football missionary. The former national coach insisted again and again that a DFB team with "German virtues" cannot win titles. Football is too advanced in its development for that. Löw isn't wrong, but the problem is: the national team must already possess German virtues as a foundation in order to build its own style of play on this basic willingness.

A team like this, particularly one plagued by the absence of injured players, cannot afford to engage in duels without force, to play positionally like a junior, to lack any cohesion towards the end, and to be fatally reminiscent of the 2-1 defeat to Japan in the opening World Cup match in Qatar. Nagelsmann couldn't hide his "great disappointment" behind his thin, stale mustache and was surprised by his students' lack of "bitterness."

Ter Stegen performs true witchcraft

If returning player Marc- André ter Stegen, who initially seemed notoriously uncertain, hadn't performed some truly magical tricks to block balls in the closing stages, the ecstatically celebrating Portuguese's thoroughly deserved victory would have better reflected their superior quality in numbers. The fact that Germany was well served by the result, including the opening goal, is no different.

The overall lackluster referee Slavko Vincic of Slovenia, normally a master of his craft, would have been better advised to disallow Florian Wirtz's beautifully worked header. Nick Woltemade was repeatedly offside, actively so, because he was harassing a Portuguese defender.

Even this gift from Slovenia was ultimately too small. No sooner had Germany taken the lead than Nagelsmann completely derailed a painstakingly assembled team with substitutions that seemed less methodical than mechanical. Robin Gosens, Serge Gnabry, and Niclas Füllkrug easily managed to play even weaker than their predecessors Maxi Mittelstädt, Leroy Sané, and Nick Woltemade. Only Dortmund's Karim Adeyemi, who was brought on later, caused a bit of a stir.

Füllkrug and Gosens can't cope with their feet

Nagelsmann explained that he wanted to "raise the energy level" with his personnel changes, adding somewhat sarcastically that it was "part of my job's requirements to make substitutions." He's right, of course, and that's what he's judged on. Füllkrug and Gosens, whose personalities were meant to be energy providers for the others' minds, couldn't manage their feet. And so the disaster took its course. The Portuguese simply ran away from the Germans.

Serge Gnabry, for his part, is likely to sink into the ground during the upcoming video analysis if he considers it self-critically. His useless behavior before Cristiano Ronaldo 's decisive goal, which sent Portugal through to the final with the big goal, would have been unworthy even of a national player from San Marino, who are bottom of the FIFA world rankings.

To cheer up the humiliated boys a bit, Nagelsmann could point out in the short run-up to the quarter-final that a win would affect their chances of joining the top nine teams in the FIFA rankings, who, in the event of successful World Cup qualification, will be in Pot 1 and thus avoid top opponents. The question is, will such messages still be heard?