The Germans were clearly disappointed after a 1-1 draw against Scotland Saturday, maybe because many had proclaimed beforehand they had a grudge to settle with Scottish coach Berti Vogts.
Germany coach Rudi Voeller's "game of the year" turned out to be a flop for the Germans, but a boost to Vogts, still a controversial figure in his homeland after years of coaching the national team.
But whatever the reason, there were some sour grapes from the Germans, uncharacteristically from German midfielder Michael Ballack.
"The Scots were one of the weakest teams we've played against recently. That shows how bad we were," said Ballack, Germany's best player.
Ballack may have been upset because he failed to make an impact on the match, perhaps hampered by the left calf injury that almost forced him to skip the game.
Before the match, the Bayern Munich midfielder said he had something to prove to Vogts. The two had repeated run-ins when he played under the now Scottish coach on the national team and at Bayer Leverkusen.
"OK, Michael Ballack wasn't fit. We can't blame him for every thing though. We lost two points," Voeller said.
If not for the galvanizing presence of Vogts, Germany would have been disappointed by the match's outcome but not necessarily devastated.
The World Cup runnerups still are in the driver's seat in the Euro 2004 Group 5 qualifying group.
Germany is knotted with the Scots with eight points, but have a better goal differential and a match in hand. They've also played one less game than third-placed Lithuania, which has seven points.
But it was the way the favored Germans played that drew criticism back home. Gone are the heady days of marching into the World Cup final.
"It's not the 1-1 result against Berti Vogts' brave Scottish 11 that bothered, but the way they performed that made you thoughtful," wrote the Welt am Sonntag Sunday newspaper.
Voeller said before the match he was charged up about facing Vogts, who had twice coached him, going back to the days when he was a forward on the Under-21 national team.
But after the match, in which Fredi Bobic scored in the 23rd and Scotland's Kenny Miller leveled 20 minutes from the end, Voeller had to admit the Scots controlled the match.
The German players acknowledged they spent the whole match playing a punishing physical match favored by the Scots instead of their own style. Several, including Ballack, added the 46,000 Scottish fans in the stadium were intimidating.
"But we've got such good football players, from the physical and the technical side, that we should have been able to level that out -- but that didn't happen today," Voeller said.
Vogts, after years of criticism in his homeland, must have gotten immense satisfaction from beating the more talented Germans.
"I told the players `please make history'. I didn't speak any words about the Germans -- about Ballack, the other big guys, about Schneider, about Klose, about Bobic," Vogts said. "I said `we are strong enough, we can win.'"
If there were any doubts that Vogts would hold onto his job as Scottish coach, those have vanished after Saturday's draw.
Vogts coached Germany to the 1996 European Championship title, but then resigned under pressure following a lackluster 1998 World Cup.
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