It was a night to forget for Germany as they kicked off their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign against Slovakia in Bratislava. Despite dominating possession, Julian Nagelsmann\u2019s side looked devoid of creativity in attack and were vulnerable in defense en route to a 2-0 loss.<\/p>\n
David Hancko\u2019s goal for Slovakia shortly before the halftime whistle set to tone and David Strelec curled an effort into the top left corner in the 55th minute to complete the scoreline. By the closing stages of the match, several players in the German squad cut entirely frustrated figures, throwing arms in the air with every misplaced pass or chance as the inevitability of defeat set in.<\/p>\n
After the match, Nagelsmann did not shy away from expressing his dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cApart from 2-3 injured players, these are the best quality players we have in Germany. Maybe next time we have to call up players with less quality but who will give everything on the pitch. I trust my players, but being simply a better player than the opponent is not enough if you don\u2019t show willingness and desire,\u201d the former Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim manager ranted (via @iMiaSanMia<\/a>).<\/p>\n Nagelsmann also drew parallels from Bayern\u2019s narrow 3-2 win over Wehen Wiesbaden in the first round of the DFB-Pokal to the Slovakia loss, taking a bit of a dig at the lack of fight he saw from players in his squad, which featured Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka, Serge Gnabry, and Jonathan Tah.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do you think a team like Wiesbaden almost drew 2-2 with FC Bayern? it\u2019s not because they have better quality, but because they showed emotionality and desire,\u201d Nagelsmann pointed out.<\/p>\n Next up for Germany is a home match in K\u00f6ln against Northern Ireland. It is a must win for them if they don\u2019t want to wind up in a bad spot after the first international break for qualifiers. Northern Ireland won their first match of qualifying 3-1 at Luxembourg.<\/p>\n The German national team hit the road to face Slovakia, looking to get off on the right foot for this round of World Cup qualifier action.<\/p>\n Julian Nagelsmann \u2014 as he is prone to do \u2014 did some experimenting with his lineup and it did not work as the team dropped a 2-0 decision. The players were bad, the coaching was not great, and it was not a banner effort overall.<\/p>\n There is plenty to discuss from this match, so let\u2019s get to it. This is what we have on tap for this edition of the Bavarian Podcast Works \u2014 Postgame Show:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a night to forget for Germany as they kicked off their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[21743,2000,299,129072,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-401506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-bayern-munich-coaches","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-german-national-team-and-international-soccer","12":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115154969077241322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}