DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — This was meant to be Germany‘s rebuild 12 months forward of internet hosting the European Championship. The crew is a wreck.

With lower than seven months till the match, the defining second of Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to Austria got here when Leroy Sané was despatched off for shoving an opponent.

Coming in a pleasant with no explicit unhealthy blood between the groups, that incident appeared to replicate simply how depressing and exasperating it’s turn out to be to play for four-time World Cup winner Germany.

“The red card for Leroy sums it all up. The frustration, the disappointment in ourselves too,” captain Ilkay Gündogan advised broadcaster ZDF, including there’s an absence of “positive energy” within the crew.

Coach Julian Nagelsmann - who now has one win from his first 4 video games - picked an attacking lineup with three ahead gamers and two extra, Kai Havertz and Julian Brandt, as nominal wing-backs. It didn’t work.

Germany created virtually no possibilities within the first half and struggled to include counterattacks led by Michael Gregoritsch, an Austrian journeyman ahead who's often on the bench at his mid-table German membership Freiburg.

As 2023 started, there was a suggestion that elimination within the group stage of final 12 months’s World Cup could possibly be defined as a one-time occasion attributable to an unlucky combine of things - political controversy, unfamiliar circumstances, underestimating Japan in its opening loss.

Instead, 2023 will finish with Germany having misplaced six of the 11 video games it performed and profitable simply three. Of the groups who beat Germany - Belgium, Poland, Colombia, Japan, Turkey and Austria - solely Belgium is ranked within the prime 10 on the earth.

Worryingly for Germany followers, there’s no apparent hyperlink between all of the unhealthy outcomes.

Germany has misplaced video games at house and away, with Hansi Flick as coach, with Nagelsmann, with lineups of younger gamers and grizzled veterans. On the most important levels, this technology’s mixed file from its final three main tournaments going again to 2018 is received three, drawn two, misplaced 5.

Flick made little progress attempting to combine youthful gamers, so Nagelsmann was employed in September on a short-term contract and the license to choose an older crew. The beginning lineup which didn't get the job carried out in opposition to Austria included 5 gamers over 30 and just one beneath 27.

Germany has known as up 45 totally different gamers this 12 months alone, however the one newer face to ascertain himself as a key participant is Borussia Dortmund striker Niclas Füllkrug, with 10 targets in 13 video games since November 2022.

One sport Germany may take inspiration from is its 2-1 win over World Cup runner-up France in September. That win got here in uncommon circumstances beneath a brief teaching crew and three days after the 4-1 loss to Japan that ended Flick’s tenure, however confirmed a renewed preventing spirit that had in any other case appeared missing.

Germany will subsequent play in March, probably providing a while to method 2024 and the European Championship with a modified mindset.

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