FROM a Scottish perspective at least, if your team is being savaged by Berti Vogts then rock has met bottom.

However, as our lampooned former national manager is nothing short of a legend in his own country, he was a 1974 World Cup winner as a player and European Championship winner as head coach in 1996, his harsh words would have hurt.

As if Germany wasn’t already hurting.

Losing to a team, South Korea, already out, which ended their tournament hopes at the group stage while reigning world champions is as low as it gets for the German footballing public.

Tellingly, it is the players far more than coach Joaquim Low who have come in for the majority of the criticism, which is quite right given the clubs they play for, wages earned and how poor they were over three games.

And the critics did not hold back.

“I assume that the German Football Association will part with many players,” said Vogts who won 96 caps as a right-back. “They do not deserve to continue to play for our national team.

“That was not worthy of a German team. Germany has shown no will. It was all too slow.

“We have to build a new team. The players must take responsibility because they do know how to play football. Hopefully, you have seen, I hope, quite a lot who now no longer will allowed to belong to the squad.

“The people who make the decisions know each other well and I am sure they will work out what to do. The younger players, those who have been with the under-21 team, must be given their chance for the European Championships.

Reconstruction will begin in Frankfurt at the DFB (Germany FA) headquarters within a matter of weeks.

It is far from certain Low will be sacked. He seems to have escaped a lot of the flying flack, although the omission of Manchester City’s Leroy Sane has been brought up. Low’s contract runs until the next World Cup in Qatar 2022.

But Paul Breitner, an iconic player of the 1970’s, described the style of Germany as “old man’s football” and questioned whether Low should carry on.

“I saw that too many players did not care,” said Breitner. “The supporters cannot accept that. Maybe the players do not need international football any longer.”

The head coach may be allowed tocontinue but Oliver Bierhoff, the team director, will go. His choice of hotel and travel arrangements has reportedly been criticised by the players

In an interview with the Sun newspaper, Lothar Mattheus let rip with the same ferocity he could hit a ball which made him the best central midfielder on the planet.

“Now I know, a little bit, what it must have felt like to be an England fan for so many years,” he said. “But in Germany we cannot complain. We ended up with the outcome our performances deserved.

“Maybe we were lazy, or just over-confident.I have never seen a German side play so badly for three successive games at a World Cup. It was not a Germany I recognised at all.

"For me, while Joachim Low will stay as coach, this has to be the end of the generation that won in 2014.

“The first thing was the squad. I still do not understand why there was no Leroy Sane, with his pace and ability to score.

“He dropped Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira after the Mexico game. We were slightly better without them against Sweden yet they both came back in yesterday. Why? I can only think it was out of loyalty, because they won the World Cup for him four years ago.

“That was just part of it. Every good German team has strong leadership in the side. This was a Germany without a leader. It was, for me, a ship without a captain. And that meant nobody could steer them to the right port.”

Michael Ballack summed the situation up perfectly within one tweet.

“You can always leave early with a bad team, but not with a team like this. Now it’s time to begin honest work. Leadership? Personality? Mentality?”

Germany football has been here before. Sure, this might be the lowest feeling in some time but they will come back. They always do.

In four years times, as sure as Qatar will be too hot to host a World Cup, the Germans will be in the Middle East as one of the big favourites. Indeed, it might be worth sticking a few bob on them to be crowned European Champions two years from now.

“So now we must change,” said Mattheus. “It is time for Ozil to go, Khedira, even Mats Hummels and Manuel Neuer.

”You saw at the Confederations Cup last summer that we have some great young players. We won the Euro Under-21 Championships as well. We must prepare for the future. That must start now, so we can arrive in Qatar a Germany side again.

“This morning, I wake up a little jealous of England. You are still in the World Cup, with a young, quick team and a proper striker. But we will be back. We will be back.”

You can bet your life they will be.