On the day after our second World Cup Waterloo, there is of course a great temptation to sink into a doomsday mood, like the skulls in the sand in Eugen Bracht's painting "The Shore of Oblivion".

Because weeping and gnashing of teeth can now be heard everywhere, we at least want to point out at this point that our early retirement in Qatar also has positive aspects.

Bertolt Kohler

Editor.

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First of all, until the start of the Bundesliga, our kickers can calmly reflect on what playing football is really about.

Secondly, Jogi Löw can now crawl somewhere satisfied and say: It's not so bad for me!

Thirdly, ZDF no longer has to worry about a commentator slipping out such a racist slogan as the one about the bathrobes during an emotional phase.

Maybe like a kamikaze pilot

Fourth, they no longer need to torment themselves in the Chancellery with the question of what to recommend to the boss if Germany makes the final.

In the final he would have to stage the “One Love” armband a little more spectacularly than his interior minister did in the first game.

If the House of History lends it to him, he might have to wrap it around his forehead like a kamikaze pilot.

Of course, that would only have been possible if we hadn't encountered our new nemesis again.

And finally, with a bit of diplomatic skill, we can sell our failure to the football dwarf Qatar, who were also eliminated, as an act of solidarity and remorse.

You shouldn't spoil it with your gas supplier in the long run.

But let's now call out their own old wisdom to our battered footballers: get up and wipe your mouth (don't shut it)!

In just under two years, the European Championships are coming up.

The urgent question now is: Where are we going to get a centre-forward by then, where a defense chief worthy of the name?

We cannot wait for the beneficial effects of the Good Daycare Act, we need more heroes much more quickly.

Minister of the Interior and Sports Faeser has the solution: express naturalization!

Would Ronaldo play at Musiala?

Even the veterans Ronaldo and Lewandowski would still help us enormously.

However, the CDU has not yet understood that, the waiting periods would have to be shortened a bit, it is urgent.

The thing with the one-two hasn't been fully thought through either, by which we don't mean the question of whether Ronaldo would also play for Musiala, but the problem of nationality and association membership.

At the moment, multinational players still have to decide on a national team with which they will stay connected to the bitter end.

Wouldn't it be in the interests of international understanding and human rights (Articles 2 and 12 of the German Basic Law) if great players could compete with one color or another?

Maybe even, as successfully tested in farewell games, in the first half for one team and, depending on the course of the game, in the second for the other?

The rules of FIFA would have to be changed a bit for this, but they can easily afford the expenses.

The modernization of German nationality law right through to its abolition makes the concept of the national team look rather musty anyway.

If our German-Turkish-Polish kickers have three passports in their cosmetics bag in the future, we should rather talk about a national team.

It would of course be over with the eagle on the jerseys.

But we already have a logo that suits us better.

A combination of old and new would also be conceivable: plucked chicken in rainbow colors.

Not even FIFA could forbid us to wear it on a chest that will surely swell proudly again.