Six observations from the 2018 World Cup

#5 German football needs some overhauling

Germany became the third consecutive defending champions and fourth in five tournaments to be eliminated at the group stage and understandably, there have been widespread calls for changes to be made, with fans calling for the dropping of key players including Mesut Ozil and the resignations of the president of the German FA (DFB), Reinhard Grindel and team general manager Olivier Bierhoff.

The German national team enjoyed unprecedented successes between 1970 and 1990, winning the World Cup on two occasions(1974,1990), contesting a further two finals(1982,1986) and finishing third at the 1970 World Cup.

After the heights of those periods, the Germans rested on their laurels and came into the 1990's with a largely ageing squad, neglecting the promotion of players through the ranks and this culminated with a shock group stage exit at Euro 2000 as defending champions.

After that elimination, German football authorities scoured the world in search of the best football ideas and put in motion a plan which enforced all professional clubs across the top two divisions to have academies focusing on training and nurturing homegrown talent into world-class players.

A decade later, the first signs of the effectiveness of that plan was seen by the world as a largely youthful German team ran roughshod over much more experienced English and Argentine teams at the 2010 World Cup, before bowing out to eventual champions Spain at the semi-finals.

Exactly fourteen years later in Brazil, one of the products of that program, a 22-year-old Mario Gotze stroked home a 113th-minute winner to break Argentine hearts and give Germany its fourth World Cup title and first in 24 years.

The program is still effective as evidenced by the abundance of young German talent around Europe which led to Germany lifting their first ever Confederations Cup last year with a youthful team devoid of experience, beating much more seasoned veterans in Chile and Mexico to the title.

However, Joachim Low has shown an unwillingness to put faith in this new crop of players, preferring to stick with his experienced legs at the expense of youth.

He inexplicably dropped the most in-form German of the just concluded season Leroy Sane, chose Manuel Neuer as his first choice goalkeeper despite the Bayern number one having not played a competitive game since September of last year owing to injury and stuck to a midfield comprising Khedira and Ozil when evidence suggests that the pair are probably past their primes.

While there is no denying that experienced players have a part to play particularly in mentoring the younger ones, every cycle must come to an end, and this generation no matter how talented they are have reached their nadir and it is time for Germany to usher in a different generation of players to lead them into their new era.