The curse of the World Cup winners continues. A "shocked" Germany became the third straight reigning champion to be knocked out in the group stage at the next World Cup -- following Italy and Spain -- after losing 2-0 to South Korea in Group F on Wednesday.
In an embarrassingly poor performance Germany went behind in the game's closing stages when Kim Young-gwon scored following a video review, with Son Heung-min then breaking away -- German keeper Manuel Neuer was by this stage in the South Korean half -- to add the second.
"I'm shocked," Germany coach Joachim Löw told reporters. "Shocked because we didn't manage to pull it off and beat Korea Republic and we lost this game.
"It wasn't my impression when I spoke to the team before that they were under pressure before the match because the Sweden game was on at the same time and we really had the feeling that our team wanted to move ahead and qualify for the knockout stages."
Germany, in a further humiliation, finished last in the group.
"The disappointment of us being eliminated is just huge," added Löw. "We didn't deserve to be winning the World Cup once again. We didn't deserve to move into the round of 16."
It was only the second time in Germany's storied World Cup history that it had failed to progress from the first round, the last occurrence coming in 1938.
Germany's last-gasp 2-1 win over Sweden in its previous match was understandably considered by many to be the type of result that would get them going after a 1-0 loss to Mexico but it ended up meaning little.
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