Manuel Neuer

Germany's captain, analyzed the painful and premature elimination of the 2018 World Cup reigning champion. The goalkeeper acknowledged that the whole team must take responsibility for what happened against South Korea and the previous matches.

"I don't know why it happened. We must take responsibility. We all made mistakes together," said the goalkeeper hours after the 'tragedy of Kazan', where Germany faced one of the darkest pages in its history by falling to South Korea (2-0) and being eliminated from Russia 2018 in the group stage.

Neuer, who plans to remain in the German national team, considered that the Joachim Löw's team lacked spark in all areas of the game. "We were too slow, we couldn't harm an opponent (...) In the qualifying phase we always scored goals, created opportunities, but we lost all of that."

"We have to analyze what happened, but we have to say clearly that we didn't deserve to advance. In none of the three matches did Germany really show up on the field, which used to be respected," he admitted in statements to the German Federation's media.

Neuer pointed out that Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea have known how to take advantage of the errors by the German team. "They knew they would have their chances. In previous tournaments, both in the Euros and in the World Cups, it had never happened. We gave a bad image in all three matches," he acknowledged.

He added that before the tournament, they were very motivated: "You want to give everything on the field, a World Cup is only played every four years and you wait for this great tournament. You work hard for it. It had never happened to me before with a German team that we showed such performance and were eliminated in the group stage."

Souce: EFE