At the very last minute, German national football coach Julian Nagelsmann dropped a world cup bombshell: Manuel Neuer, the 40-year-old, retired goalkeeper of legend, would return to grace the team with his presence once more. Neuer had withdrawn from the national team two years prior but agreed to play.

The public didn’t think it was a great idea. “Neuer’s too old now.” “He was already retired. He’ll be out of the game.” “These kinds of comebacks never work.” Neuer still plays at Bayern Munich, but the voice of the people had a point.

In the end, Neuer couldn’t live up to his past performances. Germany didn’t win a single game without suffering a goal from the opponent and eventually lost to Paraguay—typically not the toughest team to beat—after a penalty shootout in the round of 32.

Manuel Neuer is one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. He always will be. He won the most prestigious goalkeeper award five times and was crowned goalkeeper of the decade from 2010-2020. But now, Neuer’s time in the goal is coming to an end.

Germany already had a new goalkeeper. He’d been playing with the team in many matches. He was integrated, younger, and up to the task. Nagelsmann calling Neuer back—and him agreeing—looked like two men trying to hold on to a past that was no longer there. Perhaps that’s all it was—and the crowd remained right.

Often, the obvious answer lacks nuance. It’s easy to brush ideas off and miss everything that’s important. But every now and then, our gut hits the nail on the head. The question, then, is not why the obvious answer is obvious. It’s: Is it actually right? For if so, there’s nothing wrong with speaking it aloud—even if it means calling out the head coach.

Nik

Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others. Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.