Defeat to Greece has reignited the debate over the quality of the German national team. Bastian Schweinsteiger recently tore into Jürgen Klopp's side, but Lothar Matthäus could not disagree more.
Germany opened the Klopp era with a 1-1 draw against the Netherlands, followed by a 1-0 defeat to Greece in the group stage of the UEFA Nations League.
Matthäus told Bild: "Our national team is not average. We have enough players capable of changing the course of a match, players who prove week after week at big clubs such as Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Arsenal that they are of high quality."
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Where Schweinsteiger sees decline, Matthäus locates the problem elsewhere entirely. "The national team's players do not suffer from a quality problem, but from a mentality one," he said. "Germany needs to recover the resilience and winning mentality that used to terrify everyone in the past."
The 1990 World Cup winner is pinning his hopes on the new coach. "If there is anyone who can instil this spirit in this team, it is him (Klopp)," he said.
Schweinsteiger lit the fuse after the 1-0 loss to Greece. The 2014 World Cup winner, now an analyst on ARD, said: "We are no longer an elite team. We have reached a modest level. We no longer have the players who make the difference."
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Matthäus sees it very differently, and he reaches for the current squad as his evidence.
"Kai Havertz does not play as a striker for Arsenal, the English Premier League champions and Champions League runners-up, for nothing," he stressed. "Karim Adeyemi is at the peak of his form with Barcelona."
He added: "The attacking duo Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz also possess exceptional quality, and with Joshua Kimmich, we have a real leader."
The defence drew praise too, especially Nico Schlotterbeck and Jonathan Tah.
Yann Aurel Bisseck, now settled at Inter Milan, earned a special mention. "My former teammate Giuseppe Bergomi (the former Inter star) praised him, saying that he is already a world-class player," Matthäus said. "When an expert like him tells me that, I believe him." Bild concluded: "Despite their differing assessments of the current team, Schweinsteiger and Matthäus agree on one point: each of them considers Jürgen Klopp to be the right choice to lead the German national team back to success.