Germany crumble to North Macedonia on World Cup qualifier

The German national football team suffered their first loss in 20 years in a World Cup qualifier at home. In their World Cup Group J qualifier on Wednesday, Germany lost to North Macedonia 1-2 at Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena.

The last time Germany lost in a World Cup qualifier was back in 2001 when they were defeated 1-5 by England in Munich in their bid to compete in the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, and it was also the first defeat in 36 games. Except for the 2006 World Cup in Germany for which it skipped the qualifier stage, Germany remained undefeated for 20 years including the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (eight wins two draws), 2014 World Cup in Brazil (nine wins and one draw), and the 2018 Russian World Cup (10 wins).

While ranked in the 13th in FIFA rankings, Germany is one of the strongest football powerhouses in the world with four World Cup titles. By contrast, North Macedonia is an underdog ranked far below in 65th. According to Transfermarkt, a German website dealing with transfer news, the total price tag on the German national team is a whopping 942 million euros, around 15 times as high as that of their Balkan counterparts (61 million euros).


Dong-Wook Kim creating@donga.com