Germany optimistic with 2026 World Cup on horizon after a much-improved year
DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — What a difference a year makes.
Twelve months ago, Germany was on a run of awful results and seemed on course to struggle when it hosted Euro 2024. Now it's back among the top teams in Europe, with an eye on the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Germany will end 2024 with 10 victories from its 15 games. In 2023, it won just three and lost six.
The only loss this year was in the most important game, though, against eventual Euro 2024 champion Spain in extra time in the quarterfinals on home soil. It still rankles.
Coach Julian Nagelsmann's instant reaction to a handball penalty that allowed Hungary to draw Tuesday's last Nations League group game 1-1 was to ask the referee if he'd seen Germany's loss to Spain, when a handball call wasn't given against Spain's Marc Cucurella, riling German players and fans.
It’s been a big year for younger players like Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala, the “Wusiala” combo expected to shine at the 2026 World Cup. Wirtz scored six goals for Germany this year to be joint-top scorer with Arsenal's Kai Havertz and Musiala scored five.
“At their young age, they're both world-class already,” Joachim Löw, who coached Germany’s World Cup-winning team in 2014, said Sunday on local broadcaster SWR.
In 2021, Löw was the first coach to call up Musiala and Wirtz, then 18 and 17 years old respectively, to the national team, and he's impressed with how they've been crucial to Nagelsmann's project.
“They're obviously both incredibly creative, strong in one-on-ones, they're both goalscoring threats, and they've both made unbelievable progress in our national team over the last one or two years,” Löw said. “You really can't imagine the national team without them any more because they shape the game.”
Several star names — Manuel Neuer, Toni Kroos, Ilkay Gündogan, Thomas Müller — retired from international duty following Euro 2024. It doesn’t seem to have put a dent in Germany’s form.
Still, some open questions remain about just how big — or sustainable — Germany's improvement is.
A Nations League group of the Netherlands, Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina saw Germany rack up some big wins, even a 7-0 victory against Bosnia last week, but it wasn’t the hardest schedule the competition could have served up.
Marc-André ter Stegen is Germany’s top goalkeeper after Neuer left, but is a long way from returning from the serious knee injury he sustained in September. Nagelsmann’s first-choice striker Niclas Füllkrug of West Ham hasn’t played since September with an Achilles tendon injury and will be 33 by the time the World Cup comes around.
Ahead of World Cup qualifying, Germany will have a tougher test in the Nations League playoffs in March, and will find out its quarterfinal opponent in the draw at UEFA headquarters on Friday. A yellow card Tuesday means Bayer Leverkusen's Wirtz will be suspended for the first leg of the quarterfinals.
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