Ilkay Gundogan reveals Germany have ‘no confidence’ and are in a ‘mental fight with themselves’ after humiliating 4-1 thrashing by Japan

Ilkay Gundogan has revealed that Germany have ‘no confidence’ and are in a ‘mental battle with themselves’ after the team’s loss to Japan.

Germany were beaten 4-1 by Samurai Blue, with goals from Junya Ito, Ayase Ueda, Takuma Asano and Ao Tanaka canceling out Leroy Sane’s effort.

Boss Hans-Dieter Flick’s future is in doubt after his side have now won just four of their last 17 caps.

Barcelona midfielder and Germany captain Gundogan reflected on yet another defeat for his country and admitted there was a crisis of confidence within the squad.

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Gündogan admitted: ‘Very difficult to accept. I think the only good situation was the goal, where we played the rhythm we wanted, but unfortunately we have to admit that Japan was better than us defensively and offensively.

‘We have to admit that we are just not at the same level as teams like today. At the moment we’re just not good enough. That’s the reality. We may even think we are better than we are.’

‘I think you can feel that a lot of our players are mentally fighting with themselves. There is no trust, there is no understanding of the timing of decisions, and of course these kinds of matches and results don’t help at all.

“So we feel like everyone is fighting with themselves, and that makes it harder to create atmosphere and atmosphere.

‘There is a great lack of confidence in football and that makes it more difficult to achieve results.’

Germany are in a real rut and desperately need a positive result in their next friendly, against World Cup finalists France in Dortmund on Tuesday.

The pressure is increasing on Flick, who was in charge of the team when they were knocked out by Japan at the World Cup in Qatar.