The painful new reality Germany face after disastrous World Cup exit

Meanwhile, Jamal Musiala was benched; Nagelsmann’s decision-making was questioned earlier in the tournament when he kept Deniz Undav out of the starting 11 when the striker’s first two cameos produced three goals and two assists in 56 minutes.

Perhaps he was right to begin with, though. Undav was ineffective as a starter against Paraguay, while deploying him from the beginning cost Germany their super-sub. Where Nagelsmann merited sympathy, arguably, was that Germany lost Lennart Karl and Serge Gnabry to injuries before the tournament. Situations at club level may have counted against Nagelsmann, too: Florian Wirtz’s debut season at Liverpool did not go to plan and Woltemade’s first at Newcastle got worse. Without Karl and Gnabry, though, Nagelsmann struggled for a formula; Germany’s goal tally looked healthy, but only due to facing Curacao.

Step back from individual issues and there can be wider problems. One theory is that a focus on possession, some of it influenced by the former Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola, has taken away from traditional German strengths. The current generation have the technique but perhaps not the presence or the remorselessness of their predecessors. There is a host of contenders for the No 10 role but, since Miroslav Klose, there has been no archetypal German centre-forward for any length of time. Without the Germans of stereotype, the fear factor may be going.

Certainly the last three World Cups have suggested Germany can be drowned by a rising tide in the global game: the 15th, 25th or 35th best sides in the world are rather better than they were.

But Germany still expect to win such games. “Shock is probably a fine word,” said Havertz after Paraguay eliminated them. It was a surprise and yet, the longer Germany failed to get a second goal against Paraguay, there was a growing sense that this would be the day their unblemished record in World Cup penalty shootouts ended. The team who used to outlast everyone else became the first of the real big guns to go. And, strange as it sounds to those with memories of the era of German inevitability, maybe that is part of their identity now.