The winner’s curse has struck again - this time for Germany. The 2014 champions have been sent packing from the World Cup after finishing bottom of group F.
Beaten 2-0 by the Korea Republic, the result means that Germany follow in the footsteps of 2006 winners Italy and 2010 winners Spain to be knocked out in the group stage the following tournament.
Late goals from Kim Young-gwon and Son Heung-min gave Korea the victory. Sweden and Mexico finished top and second to qualify for the World Cup round of 16.
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After the crushing defeat Germany head coach Joachim Low said the holders did not deserve a place in the knockout stages.
Low told the BBC: “The disappointment of us being eliminated is just huge. We didn’t deserve to be winning the World Cup again, we didn’t deserve to move into the round of 16.
“I’m shocked. Shocked because we didn’t manage to pull it off and beat Korea Republic and we lost this game. It wasn’t my impression when I spoke to the team before that they were under pressure before the match because the Sweden game was on at the same time.
“We really had the feeling that our team wanted to move ahead and qualify for the knockout stages.”
Low added: “How do we go from here? We’ll have to talk about it calmly and I think it’s premature for me to say something. It will take me some hours to come to terms with it and I’m incredibly disappointed by this elimination.
“Our team in this match was missing the ease of play and the classiness we normally display. Also the dynamism that led to the goalscoring opportunities was not there, so we deserve to be eliminated.”
How Twitter reacted to Germany’s elimination
