Germany fans want Low gone after debacle in Spain

Berlin, Nov 19, 2020 (AFP) - Germany fans want to show national team coach Joachim Low a red card with former players also suggesting the 60-year-old should step aside amid the fallout of their historic thrashing in Spain.

Low's Germany offered little resistance as they were trounced 6-0 in Tuesday's Nations League tie.

It was the Germans' heaviest competitive defeat, matching a 6-0 friendly defeat to Austria in 1931.

Low held crisis talks with German FA president Fritz Keller in Munich on Wednesday, but with two years left on his contract, he is expected to coach Germany through to next June's European championships.

However, in a survey commissioned by AFP subsidiary SID, 84.0 percent of 1,100 German fans asked want Low and team director Oliver Bierhoff to step aside.

Just 13.3 percent want to stick with the pair, who masterminded Germany's 2014 World Cup triumph.

Either Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp or Bayern Munich boss Hansi Flick - Low's assistant coach at Brazil 2014 - are the candidates German fans most want to see take over.

More than two years after the 2018 World Cup when Germany failed to get out of their group, the historic rout by Spain was the latest set-back for Loew's side.

Lothar Matthaus, who captained West Germany to the 1990 World Cup title, says Low should have stepped down in 2014.

After 14 years as Germany coach, Low "seems weary. His public statements are no longer confident as they were - and his team reflects that on the field," said Matthaus.

After 3-3 draws against Switzerland and Turkey already this season, Matthaus says defeat to Spain was just part of Germany's downward trend.

"It's the overall picture that is most alarming."

Former Liverpool and Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann says Low's team lacks leaders.

"He always had outstanding teams and players who solved problems inside the dressing room on their own. Now he seems helpless," Hamann told Sky.

"He feels that he is no longer reaching the team as he did perhaps three years ago.

"And if this is the case, the problems are deeper than everyone wants to admit."

Hamann says the German FA are now paying the price for presenting Low with an improved contract extension just before the Russia 2018 finals.

"It was complacent that before the 2018 World Cup, no thought was given to the idea that something could go wrong and Low's contract was extended."