You underrate your coach and overrate your players. Nagelsmann is one of the finest managers in the tournament.
I don't think so. Individually, the team was outstanding. Kroos and Gündogan are all time great German CMs, Wirtz and Musiala the biggest talents I've seen in the Bundesliga and the defense was superb with Rüdiger and Tah as well. And it was all complemented by very good players in almost every position. Thing is that few replicated their club form.
Welcome to our world mate.
I know the anguish and hatred after a disappointing loss. Given time, I hope you will see more of the aspect that Germany played some of the best football in this championship (and a few of the last championships as well), the best Germany I’ve seen since Brazil as well.
Going out on the finest of margins after the game of the championship against the other best team atm, that is no shame at all, in fact you don’t get so close without very good coaching and match leadership. If one of Fullkrüg or Havertz’ finishes had found true aim, Germany would have been unanymously celebrated as a masterclass today.
I get that another team could play less open, be more clinical and beat this Spain team. But 7 out of 10 times, they wouldn’t, regardless of strategy. Nagelsmann gave Germany a really good chance, and there where centimetres deciding the outcome. He has done very much right.
I've never been bitter when we crashed out but this time is different because much more was possible. The frustrating part is that I'm going to be largely alone with this opinion since the public sentiment will be like you described. But Nagelsmann has made so many errors in my opinion and it only gets more disappointing because it looked like he wouldn't be going down that road in the beginning of his tenure.
His player assessment was terrible in my eyes. Honestly, everybody who saw Wirtz this season should be furious that he was benched in the two most important games. He wasn't at his best in this tournament but you could immediately see how good he is in terms of ball progressing, be it by making intelligent runs, playing line breaking passes or just solving pressure situations technically. It only gets worse when you consider that he benched him for Leroy Sané who has been out of form for centuries and played him out of position to accomodate Musiala who is still extremely erratic. And Musiala is another very good example because under Nagelsmann, he seems to be the first name on the team sheet although he gave in very mediocre performances to say the least after his admittedly mindblowing match vs. Scotland. Going for Can is another big mistake and if your football expertise leads you to playing him out of all available options in CM then I simply don't trust it. And we've seen absolutely nothing from Führich either. He has played a brillant season and has looked lit everytime he was subbed in when we played our preseason friendlies, linking up very well with Mittelstädt. One of the things I was looking forward to was that we could bring him or even both in during the late game and that didn't happen at all, again to play the completely out of form Sané. Same goes for Undav and Beier by the way.
Of course we were still one of the best teams of the tournament but we still underperformed. And I'm not really optimistic for the future since we are about to lose our two best CMs with no successors on the horizon. And CM is probably the most important position in modern football.
Nagelsmann has little to do with the defeat and you're vastly understimating the quality of your opponents.
He set up the team tactically very well in every game. The problem lies with the player quality. Sané is done, especially upfront, Havertz can't finish to save his life and Füllkrug is a second rate striker.
If he set it up very well, why did he change twice in the halftime break? He didn't set the team up correctly, he fecked it up and he had already done it against Denmark but was unable to see it. And as good as Spain is, they are definitely beatable. Croatia shot 16 times worth 2,5 or so xG against them, Italy was worse than Switzerland this tournament and Georgia and Albania were clear underdogs. We had the home advantage and IMO the best conditions to win this thing.
And if Sané is done, why does he start twice in a row when we have so many alternatives lined up? Nagelsmann started his tenure by betting on technicality and football IQ, why has he abandoned that idea mid tournament?
