45 minSeason 1 • Episode 1
UpcomingBerti Vogts was already under pressure during the World Cup preparations – living in the shadow of his predecessor, Franz Beckenbauer. If he was the “iconic figure,” Vogts was the honest worker who clung to traditional ideals. But in the 1990s, those ideals were outdated – instead of community and cohesion, the “me-first” mentality had entered professional football. Because Vogts refused to cooperate with the BILD newspaper, it painted him as a loser and a failure – an image that also took hold in the public eye. Vogts therefore retreated into pragmatic optimism, promising the title.
For the 1994 World Cup, Germany entered as the favorite and defending champion, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals. Internal conflicts, media campaigns, and public criticism of coach Berti Vogts led the so-called "eleven friends" – players like Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann, Stefan Effenberg, Bodo Illgner, and Matthias Sammer – to maneuver themselves into a collective nightmare within just a few weeks. This documentary takes a behind-the-scenes look at Germany’s memorable World Cup and shows how one of the strongest German teams of all time spectacularly failed.
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