German football in crisis

This is the first time this has happened since 2006, and all comes only nine months on from Germany's disastrous World Cup defence, where they were eliminated in the group stages. 

Football goes in cycles, and it could be that we are seeing the end of one here. Nobody could have imagined that the German national team would fail to get through a group including Mexico, Sweden and South Korea, and yet somehow they managed it.

It is a situation that has been repeated on the club scene too, with Bayern Munich losing to Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund being roundly beaten by Spurs and Schalke being demolished 10-2 on aggregate by Manchester City.

It seems the great success the country enjoyed in the first half of this decade, which included Champions League success for Bayern Munich in 2013 and World Cup glory for the national team in 2014, has come to an end. And the recent decision by Joachim Lowe to remove Thomas Muller, Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng from his Germany squad illustrates this.