South Korea on Wednesday sent shockwaves around the world with their 2-0 win over defending champions Germany in their final 2018 FIFA World Cup Group F tie, sending Die Mannschact crashing out of the tournament in the group stage itself and skipper Manuel Neuer has issued an apology.
Germany, for the first time in World Cup history, lost two of their three games and perhaps even more embarrassingly, finished dead last in a group that consisted of Mexico, Sweden, South Korea and themselves.
Joachim Loew’s men arrived in Russia as the bookmakers’ favourites, despite being in idifferent form since the turn of the year.
However, their 1-0 loss to Mexico in the opener proved to be an eye-opener and while they managed to scrape past Sweden 2-1 in dramatic fashion, Korea quashed their hopes with two stoppage-time goals on Wednesday night.
DON’T MISS | South Korea send defending champions Germany packing
Neuer was directly at fault for the second one and he took to Instagram to post this message:
A post shared by Manuel Neuer (@manuelneuer) on
The post, when translated, reads: “Dear Fans!
We’re just as disappointed as you are! A World Cup is only every four years, and we had done so much.
We’re sorry we didn’t play like world champions. So we are also deserved to be eliminated, as bitter as it is. Your support was great, in Germany and in the Russian stadiums.
We celebrated together in Rio 2014 but sport also includes defeats and recognition if the opponents were better. We congratulate Sweden and Mexico on progress and South Korea for yesterday’s victory.
Thanks to Russia for the hospitality!”