For the first time in the history of the Women's World Cup, Germany will not participate in the knockout stage. Their group stage came to an end with a 1-1 draw with South Korea. The result would have been enough to see them through to the Round of 16. However, Morocco took a 1-0 win over Colombia to leapfrog Germany in the standings. Germany had begun the group with a 6-0 thrashing of Morocco but suffered a stoppage-time 2-1 loss to Colombia. Furthermore, despite entering as the favorites against an all-but-eliminated South Korea, Germany found themselves trailing after just six minutes. It's yet another crushing blow for the second-ranked team in the world.
"We are all very speechless," German midfielder Lena Oberdorf said. "Things didn't quite click. We didn't really show the combination we can show and we can play." Outside of their 6-0 destruction of Morocco, Germany scored just two goals in the tournament, both from team leader Alexandra Popp. Popp nearly scored a 74th-minute header but hit the bar. Furthermore, head coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg chose to wait until the 85th minute to tell her team that they needed to score another goal to avoid elimination.
World Top Ten Struggles At The World Cup
Germany is one of three teams ranked in the FIFA top ten to exit the World Cup in the group stage. Canada missed the knockouts for the first time since 2011 after suffering a 4-0 loss to Australia in their must-win final match. Meanwhile, Brazil was held to a goalless draw by Jamaica, giving As Canarinhas their first group stage exit since 1995. But even the teams that made it through didn't do so especially cleanly.
The United States, the two-time defending champions, came five inches from elimination in their final group-stage match against Portugal. Had Ana Capeta's 91st-minute shot not hit the post, Portugal would have progressed over the US. Sweden needed an injury time goal to beat South Africa. England needed a do-over on a penalty to beat Haiti. France were held to a goalless draw by Jamaica. Meanwhile, Spain were beaten 4-0 by Japan. Elsewhere, Australia was all-but-eliminated before their 4-0 drubbing of Canada. The ninth-ranked Netherlands arguably had the cleanest group stage of any team in the top ten. The question is - will this chaos carry into the knockouts?
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