Why the happy face, Merz? Football is just the latest system failing in Germany

Germany’s dismal World Cup performance offered no reprieve for a country already reeling from multiple economic and social crises, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz is struggling to sell the loss to Paraguay as a show of “strength.”

Germany lost a penalty shootout to Paraguay at Boston Stadium on Monday night, turning the country’s World Cup dreams into what German tabloid Bild called a “football nightmare.” 

The defeat in the first knockout stage of the tournament came as a surprise: Germany has won four World Cups, three European Championships, and never lost on penalties in football’s most prestigious tournament. The Germans entered the competition at 10th in FIFA’s world rankings, with Paraguay sitting in 41st.

However, these triumphs are becoming a thing of the past for Germany. After winning the World Cup in 2014, Germany failed to make it out of the tournament’s group stages in 2018 and 2022, and on Monday, manager Julian Nagelsmann conceded that “this is the third elimination in a row, so we are not part of the first-class teams any more.”

Bild referred to Monday night as “the night of shame,” but Merz attempted to put a positive spin on the loss. “With your commitment and team spirit at this World Cup, you have thrilled our country,” he addressed the team in a post on X, as fans back home in Germany smashed their beer bottles and left watch parties in dismay.

“We celebrate our successes together. And in defeat, we stand united,” he wrote in a follow-up post. “That is what makes us strong. Whoever wears the eagle on their chest has earned our support and not our scorn.”

Merz misses the mark

Merz’s message – described by the Express tabloid as “insane” – didn’t console the tens of thousands of Germans who flooded his replies. “This tweet stands for everything that’s wrong in this country. And then people wonder why you’re the most unpopular politician on the planet,” author and entrepreneur Mario Lochner replied. 

“Even in football, the current ‘New Germany’ is nothing more than third-rate,” satirist Johannes Normann quipped.

“Chancellor, that was a rock-bottom kick,” right-wing author Oliver Gorus wrote. “They were miserably led and have rightly been eliminated. A mirror image of the whole country.”

To the country’s most popular political party, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), the national team’s performance was a metaphor for the performance of Germany under Merz. “It seems that Merz is applying the same yardstick to the national team as he does to his governing coalition,” AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla posted. “This performance was not exactly thrilling. The principle of performance must apply once again – for the chancellor and federal ministers, the national coach and the national players. Germany must get back to the top!”

Germany’s decade of humiliation

Germany’s post-2014 World Cup drought mirrors the country’s decline into global irrelevance over the last decade. Barely a year after striker Mario Goetze scored the winning goal over Argentina in the 2014 final in Brazil, Chancellor Angela Merkel threw open the country’s borders to more than a million Middle Eastern migrants. The ensuing gang rapes, stabbings, and vehicle attacks shattered the country’s social cohesion, making Germany a byword for the failures of multiculturalism.