Is Germany on its way to Euro humiliation?

Both theories have their merits, and both have appeal: we like beautiful, well-rounded stories. Neither completely explains the problem. After all, Germany may not have as many good players as they did a decade ago, but they still have plenty. If a clear strategic vision at managerial level were important for teams in international football, Italy would not have four World Cups.

Given the inability of successive German coaches – and dozens of players, some old, some young, some creative, some diligent – ​​to get to the heart of the problem, it seems increasingly clear that the problem is likely structural. It is worth considering whether the German system, which was for so long its strength, is now becoming its weakness.

The high-octane percussive style first popularized by Rangnick, Klopp and the rest is now the standard in the Bundesliga. This is how all German players are raised. However, it is complex: each team will spend hundreds of hours refining its pressing strategies and adapting them to its needs and resources.

However, the kind of time required to make it work is not available in international football; it is why the international game is often less slick and fluid and sometimes appears less refined than its club counterpart. At the same time, asking players to change habits ingrained in them since childhood, for a few weeks every other summer, will likely end in failure.

And so Germany is caught in a dilemma: an unbalanced but nevertheless gifted squad, unable to do what it knows, but also unable to do anything else, charged with meeting the lofty expectations of previous generations.