Quote from: LUCKMCFLY on January 02, 2023, 07:34:13 PM

What happened in Almenaia was something very resounding, the fact that Toni Kross took a step back to give a younger player a new opportunity was not something very intelligent, because the German team lacked a good midfielder who played to Muller, the fact of calling veteran players was a good idea because they have experience, as in the case of Gotze, the new players are good, but they do not have experience, it was not only a mistake by Germany, it was also a mistake by Portugal, they left their best star sitting on the bench, that is something that should not be allowed for anything in the world, things should be seen that way.

I don't think that contributed to Germanys problem. Kross was in the 2018 world cup and they were eliminated in the group stages too. Germany played really well in their 3 games. I'd say they were just unlucky. They only messed up and didn't win Japan. They played well against Spain but only got a draw. They also played well against Costa Rica and won.
In fact, the Germany of the 2022 world cup without Toni Kross was better than the Germany of the 2018 world cup with Toni Kross. MUsiala was outstanding. Not having a natural world class top striker was also a problem for Germany.

I'm even tempted to say they would have been a problem for every other team if they made it out of the group stages. The world cup is a tournament that any single mistake can knock you out of the tournament. Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Brazil all learnt that the hard way