Vilnius. Lithuania. “Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is just a quick update for the football fans on board,” announced the Portuguese air steward on the flight from Cologne to Vilnius, continuing with a smirk:
“I’m sorry to say: Germany lost 2-0.”
The announcement was greeted with cheers from the handful of English fans on board while the result also came as a pleasant surprise to the dozen or so Belgians making the same trip.
But the reactions elicited disapproving glances from the German passengers who made up the majority on board.
The reigning world champions are out - again. It might have happened to France in 2002, Italy in 2010 and Spain 2014 - but it surely it wouldn’t happen to Germany in 2018.
Not to a team representing the very elite of what has rolled off the production line of Germany’s football factories in the last two decades - a team considered so strong that there was no place for World Cup winning goal scorer Mario Götze or the Premier League’s Young Player of the Year Leroy Sané.
Not to a team featuring world champions Thomas Müller, Manuel Neuer, Mesut Özil, Sami Khedira, Toni Kroos, Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng.
And not to a team still coached by Joachim Löw - the assistant coach turned head coach who had mastered the art of international football management like no other.
Like the names of his most trusted players and German mainstays, Löw’s achievements roll off the tongue: two European Championship semifinals, one final, two third-place finishes at the World Cup and of course the crowning glory of Germany’s footballing rebirth in the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro in 2014.
But another list will now dominate the discourse around the self-styled “Mannschaft” - a list of factors which contributed to this unmitigated failure in Russia. Because the warning signs were there.
There was the lack of a proper test in a qualifying group which Germany navigated with a 100% record. And the failure to then beat any of the higher caliber opponents in subsequent friendlies: France, Spain, Brazil ... and Austria. Even a 2-1 win over Saudi Arabia was considered barely better than a defeat.
It started with a silly Hollywood marketing slogan: “Best NeVer Rest” - complete with the Roman numeral “V” as “Die Mannschaft” targeted a fifth title. And quickly became the nonsensical hashtag #ZSMMN (“zusammen” - together).
If that’s all a bit confusing, don’t worry; it doesn’t make much sense to German speakers either. The DFB’s official Twitter account even spelt it wrong at one point.
Then the carefully choreographed press conferences began, in which every meaningless utterance from Löw and is players was elevated to gospel spoken down from upon high.
The unfortunate “Erdogan Affair” certainly didn’t fit into the official DFB narrative either. The reactions to Mesut Özil’s and Ilkay Gündogan’s photoshoot with the Turkish president exposed deeper issues within German society as a whole, and it was wrong of the DFB to try and brush it under the carpet in the way they did.
The whole approach smacked of self-importance, complacency, misplaced over-confidence and, frankly, arrogance.
After Toni Kroos’ 95th-minute winner against Sweden, two members of the DFB staff jumped in front of the Swedish bench, celebrating with clenched fists. It wasn’t a good look.
And let’s not get started on the German team’s official “FanClub Nationalmannschaft sponsored by Coca-Cola,” obediently waving their officially distributed flags.
They don’t look like the sort of football fans usually seen at Bundesliga games most weeks but they can’t be blamed for the limp performances - or can they? They were drowned out by the raucous, vocal, colourful Mexicans in the opening defeat in Moscow, and it didn’t go unnoticed by the players and media. But when you court event fans, what do you expect?
But back to the football, where there have been positive developments too since 2014. Germany won last summer’s Confederations Cup with what was effectively a youth team captained by Julian Draxler, conducted by Julian Brandt and spearheaded by Timo Werner.
But those signals went unheeded too as, by the time Germany returned to Russia twelve months later, Löw had placed his faith in his trusted old guard again. But how do you motivate players to give absolutely everything to win a title they’ve already won?
“Löw was the embodiment of complacency,” wrote a damning Süddeutsche Zeitung, “the emotionless among the emotionless, empty in body and mind.”
Tabloid BILD ironically chose the same headline they used almost four years ago after Germany’s earth-shattering 7-1 crushing of Brazil: “Speechless!”
And that summed up the German airline passengers at somewhere over Poland. For the English fans en route to Kaliningrad, it was a case of Schadenfreude at 30,000 feet.
