Germany’s failure to beat France in the semifinal of the European Championship exposes its lack of strength in depth with young players failing to bridge a generation gap after its World Cup win.
left back Philipp lahm, central defender Per Mertesacker and record goal-scorer Miroslav Klose all retired after Germany’s 2014 World Cup win in Brazil, leading to a noticeable drop in the side’s quality, evident from the very first qualifying games forEuro 2016.
A hard-fought win over Scotland was followed by defeat to Poland and then a draw at home with Ireland, which also managed to beat Joachim loew’s side in Dublin a year later. Germany’s qualification campaign was a lot tougher than many expected it to be.
The retirements certainly hurt, though formerly unknown Cologne defender Jonas Hector has been a reliable replacement for lahm, Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng form a solid central partnership, and the return of Besiktas striker Mario Gomez coincided with Germany’s attack finally scoring at Euro 2016.
Gomez, who missed the World Cup win due to injury-induced poor form, scored on his first start in the tournament against Northern Ireland, and then again against Slovakia.
But Gomez was the only one of Germany’s regular starting forwards that looked capable of scoring, with Thomas Mueller enduring a puzzling drought, Mario Goetze dropped after the group games, and Mesut Ozil constantly running without reward.
With the forwards all in poor form, Germany had no replacement for Gomez when he was ruled out for the rest of the tournament.
Goetze was overlooked against France despite his usual role as a “false nine.” Andre Schuerrle wasn’t trusted after failing to impress as substitute in the group stage, and veteran forward Podolski was only played with Germany already 3-0 up vs Slovakia.
loew’s failure to trust younger players like Sane sooner in tournament seemed to betray a lack of confidence in their ability to perform at highest level.