Germany's embarrassing World Cup exit at the hands of Paraguay in the round of 32 has sparked recriminations at home, with legendary former captain Lothar Matthaus blaming the players' families for the lack of focus. Germany lost on penalties for the first time in their World Cup history, and Matthaus, now a pundit for BILD, has pointed to off-pitch distractions as a key factor.
Matthaus Compares to 1994
Matthaus, 65, who captained Germany in the 1994 World Cup when they lost to Bulgaria as reigning champions, sees parallels with this year's tournament in North America. He said: "While there's a lot that needs to be processed about what happened on the pitch, what happened off the pitch also needs to be a topic of discussion. There were documentaries [made] about this topic in '94 [and] I don't think it was that different this time round."
According to Matthaus, family was "more important for many of [the players] than what took place on the football pitch." He questioned why families were brought in so early, saying: "They [the players] hadn't even been in America for two weeks, and already their entire families were with them. They could have been flown in for the quarter-finals when the team had actually accomplished something."
Unrest Over Travel Arrangements
Matthaus also revealed there was "a lot of unrest" about differing travel arrangements for players' families. He stated: "I know that it was a topic of discussion and that one player was cross with another because he was allowed to bring his mum with him. Another was allowed to bring his wife, then the kids were allowed to fly too." Discrepancies arose with some family members flying on the team plane, while "others had had to take a commercial flight."
He concluded: "The focus was simply not on the World Cup but on this free day to spend with the family and that free day with the family." Germany's top scorer Kai Havertz had his wife Sophia watching on, but the team failed to progress beyond the first knockout round.
