Oliver Bierhoff is aware that Germany‘s failure to advance past the group stage of the World Cup on Thursday was entirely their own fault.
At Al Bayt Stadium, Hansi Flick’s team defeated Costa Rica 4-2 in their final Group E encounter, but it wasn’t enough to advance them to the round of 16.
The Samurai Blue took first spot because to Japan’s unexpected 2-1 victory over Spain, while Luis Enrique’s team came in second thanks to a better goal differential than Germany.
Germany was left speechless after falling short once more in Qatar, four years after failing to advance from their group in Russia.
Germany suffered a disappointing 2-1 loss to Japan in their initial game, but they held Spain to a draw before winning their first match of the competition against Japan in what turned out to be their final match.
Bierhoff, Germany’s national team managing director, said: “We’re extremely disappointed. We’re angry too because we had things in our own hands in all three games.
“Ultimately, football is a simple game. You have to score lots of goals and concede as few goals as you can, which we didn’t manage to do.
“We could have put more pressure on Spain tonight if we had taken our chances and scored more goals. A trend of the last few years has been us throwing away games we’ve controlled.”
Japan will face Croatia for a place in the quarter-final next Monday, with Spain taking on Morocco 24 hours later.