Paraguay dumped Germany out of the World Cup after winning a penalty shootout to decide their round of 32 tie, and the recriminations are now happening back homeThis article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more
Kai Havertz was Germany’s joint top goalscorer at the World Cup and had his wife, Sophia, watching on
Lothar Matthaus believes Germany’s players lacked focus at the World Cup because of their families being with them in North America. The former national team captain compared it to the 1994 tournament, when they lost in the quarter-finals to Bulgaria as the reigning champions.
Matthaus, 65, captained Germany in both of those, which were two of the five World Cups he played in. Since retiring, the legendary midfielder has remained in the spotlight as an opinionated television pundit back home.
He was even part of ITV’s coverage at the European Championship in 2016. This summer, he is working for BILD.
After his nation went out to Paraguay in the round of 32 following a first World Cup penalty shootout loss, Matthaus was keen to look deeper than their performance against their South American opponents.
He said: “While there’s a lot that needs to be processed about what happened on the pitch, what happened off the pitch also needs to be a topic of discussion.
“There were documentaries [made] about this topic in ’94 [and] I don’t think it was that different this time round.” Matthaus claims family was “more important for many of [the players] than what took place on the football pitch”.
Thirty-two years on from his experience of World Cup disappointment in the United States, he could not understand the reasoning behind their presence. Matthaus said: “I really don’t know why they should be there.
Lothar Matthaus has not minced his words
“They [the players] hadn’t even been in America for two weeks, and already their entire families were with them. They could have been flown in for the quarter-finals when the team had actually accomplished something.”
He also claims “there was a lot of unrest” about differing travel arrangements. Matthaus said: “I know that it was a topic of discussion and that one player was cross with another because he was allowed to bring his mum with him.
“Another was allowed to bring his wife, then the kids were allowed to fly too.” Discrepancies are said to have arose with some flying on the team plane, whereas “others had had to take a commercial flight”.
He concluded: “The focus was simply not on the World Cup but on this free day to spend with the family and that free day with the family”.
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