Germany lost their first game of the 2023/24 season as they ramp up their preparations for the EUROs next summer. Following the disappointing 4-1 loss in Wolfsburg, coach Hansi Flick expressed his opinions on his team’s performance. New captain Ilkay Gündogan and his teammates also spoke to the media after the loss. DFB.de has summarised the post-match reaction.
Hansi Flick: Above all else, we are very disappointed. It has to be said that Japan have a very good team. Currently, we don’t have it in us to break through such a compact defence and create goalscoring opportunities. We simply did not play well enough. I think that we started the game well; Japan scored with their first chance. The fans were behind us again when we got the equaliser, but then we went 2-1 down almost immediately. I don’t think that you can criticise our second-half performance; we tried to mount a lot of offensives, but we had too many individual errors at the back. These errors were pounced on by our opponents and that’s why they deserved to win. You have to say that we were not good enough to beat Japan today.
Ilkay Gündogan: We have to be honest and say that Japan were clearly the better side today. They let the ball do the work, played football in the right areas and created a lot of chances. They were superior to us in every aspect of the game. We also made far too many individual errors. You can’t do that at this level. We have to admit that we are not playing at the same level as teams like Japan. That’s difficult and disappointing because we have high aspirations, but our most recent results speak for themselves. Sometimes the reality can differ greatly from our aspirations.
Joshua Kimmich: The bottom line is that it was a well-deserved defeat. We had nothing up front in the second half. I felt that we started the game well and then went 1-0 down against the run of play, but we were definitely not good enough in the second half. It’s not a matter of not wanting it enough; we are just not able to show our quality on the pitch and we are not playing with confidence. There are too many errors in our game and that’s why we have problems against teams like Japan who defend well – we don’t have much to hurt them with. We’ve got a squad that’s full of quality, but we always end up saying that we don’t see enough of that quality on the pitch. We haven’t actually had a good performance since the World Cup. We’ve got to reflect on that and call our quality into question.
Marc-André ter Stegen: I don’t think that we played well today. We had phases of the game that were okay and we created our chances through good bits of individual play. But then we conceded a silly second goal. We made mistakes today that you just can’t make at this level. We are self-critical and know that we didn’t do a good job today – it’s just not clicking for us on the pitch at the moment. We’ve got a great group, so it’s hard to judge why things didn’t go well for us again. Today’s loss is another tough result for the team to take.
Rudi Völler: I’ve got to admit that I’m still a little in shock. Tonight was a real blow. The fans were behind us at the start of the game and we tried to bring some momentum into the game. The fans were particularly passionate after we scored the equaliser. Then we made too many defensive mistakes against a really good Japan side. But it goes without saying that losing 4-1 is extremely disappointing and we deserved to lose by this scoreline too. The effort was there, but such a loss is difficult to stomach. It’s hard to find the right words after a game like that. It was just really bad. You have to congratulate the Japanese for their top performance, but we defended poorly and you can’t get away with that at this level.
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Germany lost their first game of the 2023/24 season as they ramp up their preparations for the EUROs next summer. Following the disappointing 4-1 loss in Wolfsburg, coach Hansi Flick expressed his opinions on his team’s performance. New captain Ilkay Gündogan and his teammates also spoke to the media after the loss. DFB.de has summarised the post-match reaction.
Hansi Flick: Above all else, we are very disappointed. It has to be said that Japan have a very good team. Currently, we don’t have it in us to break through such a compact defence and create goalscoring opportunities. We simply did not play well enough. I think that we started the game well; Japan scored with their first chance. The fans were behind us again when we got the equaliser, but then we went 2-1 down almost immediately. I don’t think that you can criticise our second-half performance; we tried to mount a lot of offensives, but we had too many individual errors at the back. These errors were pounced on by our opponents and that’s why they deserved to win. You have to say that we were not good enough to beat Japan today.
Ilkay Gündogan: We have to be honest and say that Japan were clearly the better side today. They let the ball do the work, played football in the right areas and created a lot of chances. They were superior to us in every aspect of the game. We also made far too many individual errors. You can’t do that at this level. We have to admit that we are not playing at the same level as teams like Japan. That’s difficult and disappointing because we have high aspirations, but our most recent results speak for themselves. Sometimes the reality can differ greatly from our aspirations.
Joshua Kimmich: The bottom line is that it was a well-deserved defeat. We had nothing up front in the second half. I felt that we started the game well and then went 1-0 down against the run of play, but we were definitely not good enough in the second half. It’s not a matter of not wanting it enough; we are just not able to show our quality on the pitch and we are not playing with confidence. There are too many errors in our game and that’s why we have problems against teams like Japan who defend well – we don’t have much to hurt them with. We’ve got a squad that’s full of quality, but we always end up saying that we don’t see enough of that quality on the pitch. We haven’t actually had a good performance since the World Cup. We’ve got to reflect on that and call our quality into question.
Marc-André ter Stegen: I don’t think that we played well today. We had phases of the game that were okay and we created our chances through good bits of individual play. But then we conceded a silly second goal. We made mistakes today that you just can’t make at this level. We are self-critical and know that we didn’t do a good job today – it’s just not clicking for us on the pitch at the moment. We’ve got a great group, so it’s hard to judge why things didn’t go well for us again. Today’s loss is another tough result for the team to take.
Rudi Völler: I’ve got to admit that I’m still a little in shock. Tonight was a real blow. The fans were behind us at the start of the game and we tried to bring some momentum into the game. The fans were particularly passionate after we scored the equaliser. Then we made too many defensive mistakes against a really good Japan side. But it goes without saying that losing 4-1 is extremely disappointing and we deserved to lose by this scoreline too. The effort was there, but such a loss is difficult to stomach. It’s hard to find the right words after a game like that. It was just really bad. You have to congratulate the Japanese for their top performance, but we defended poorly and you can’t get away with that at this level.
