Offered a chance of redemption following the humiliation of the 2018
World Cup, the team failed to assert themselves
![Joachim Löw’s long Germany reign fizzles out in floundering disarray | Nick Ames](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/63a224fe12551bcc0ef23a8a900a5077937a7a1c/138_80_2202_1321/master/2202.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=a3d2f9b6144d0a7f9d2bde2d54689f05)
An empire has fallen not once, but twice. This could have been Germany’s great reprieve, the searing statement that paved them a clear path to the final and a chance to smooth out the scars inflicted by their catastrophe at
Russia 2018. Although it bore an altogether different hue from the humiliation at South Korea’s hands in Kazan, it was more painful in a certain sense: the Joachim Löw era fizzled out at an ecstatic Wembley, of all places, and the sight of a chuntering Thomas Müller stomping down the touchline after being substituted showed that ultimately there could be no quick route to one last success.
Related:
England beat
Germany as Sterling and Kane send them to Euro 2020 last eight