Germany coach calls earliest World Cup exit 'a disaster'

The 2003 and 2007 champions - and one of the favourites to win the tournament -- crashed out in the group stage for the first time in their history. Debutants Morocco instead reached the last 16 after stunning Colombia 1-0 to join the South Americans on six points in Group H. Germany finished third in the table on four points and will be heading home.

"If you want to see it as a disaster in sporting terms, then it's hard to argue against it," Voss-Tecklenburg said after the stalemate in Brisbane condemned her side. Voss-Tecklenburg said she was still trying to come to terms with going out at the first hurdle and refused to speculate about her future with the national team.

"Our team of coaches will talk about what happened of course and what we could have done differently, but it's not something I can analyse one and half hours after exiting. But of course I'm disappointed - of course I'm frustrated. Overall we never really played our game the way we know we can," she added.

"Maybe we were too careful at the start. Maybe we were too uptight and tried to force things." Last summer's European finalists came into the game knowing that a win against South Korea would take them through to the knockout stage. The team ranked second in the world were expected to get the better of a side who had lost their opening two matches and had almost no chance of advancing.

But Colin Bell's side went a goal up early on through Cho So-hyun and defended stoutly to frustrate their opponents, who could not find a winner following Alexandra Popp's first-half equaliser. The Englishman Bell said his side deserved the draw despite the pressure the Germans put them under.

"We had a chance early with Casey Phair and then when Cho scored early it just freed up our team," he said. "The way they played, the way they fought, we really deserved a point. When Popp scored everyone probably expected us to lose, but we kept fighting, kept playing."