10 Most disappointing football teams of 2018

#1 Germany

Korea Republic v Germany: Group F - 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia

World champions in 2014, mediocrity in 2018. It has been a heavy fall from grace for the most successful European footballing nations.

Owing to their status as defending champions and the caliber of world-class players on display, Germany entered Russia as joint-favourites alongside Brazil to triumph in the tournament but it all went horribly off-script.

In rather shocking scenes, the Germans failed to make it out of a relatively straightforward group, losing two of their group stage matches to mark the first time they had excited at that stage of a World Cup since 1938.

Joachim Low made the rather curious decisions to stick to his tested crop of players, despite evidence suggesting there were better options elsewhere.

The fallout from Germany's shambolic World Cup display was far-reaching, with Ozil bearing the brunt of criticisms which led to his retirement from international football.

It got progressively worse for the 2014 world champions, as they still struggled to post the world cup, breaking a host of unwanted records which ultimately culminated in their relegation to League B in the Nations League.

For a country so accustomed to winning, 2018 proved to be a disastrous year for Germany and was unarguably one of the worst years in their illustrious football history.