Why England loses against Germany

The short reason is that for Germany, it's just another match towards the objective of winning the World Cup.  For England, it's about getting beyond a sense of national inferiority.  The weight of expectation on the England team against Germany is very heavy. 

Somebody on the radio yesterday was saying that Germans don't regard England as big rivals, so an England match for them doesn't have any special meaning.  He compared it with how the English feel about playing Scotland.  I was in Germany for a couple of days this week and the German colleagues I spoke confirmed this attitude.

FWIW I think the English "thing" with Germany goes way, way back.  In the 19th century Britain regarded Germany with huge affection, as a sort of protege.  Then Germany started getting its act together in industry and technology, and the English couldn't feel so superior any more.  The mood of apprehension was captured in The Riddle of the Sands before WWI

Britain and Germany went nose to demented nose in WWI and the two nations were arguably equal in power.  Twenty years later and Germany was obviously much more powerful.  Britain only escaped total defeat by the width of the Channel and the cunning and bravery of a few key people.  Britain emerged on the winning side ONLY because Nazi Germany had been mad enought to take on the United States and the Soviet Union.  Without the USA and the USSR, Britain was no match for Germany.

I firmly believe that under all the bluster and the racist comments about Germans, the British and in particular the English fear deep down that Germans are fundamentally superior at things that matter to Britain - sport, innovation, business, social justice, you name it.  Everything but entertainment, in fact.  Over the past 60 years Germany has been extraordinarily successful at everything it has attempted.  England hasn't.

The German comedian Henning Wehn put his finger on things very astutely at the Edinburgh Festival a couple of years ago.  To paraphrase, in Britain people go deep into debt to buy 3,000 rotten bricks held together by mouldy wallpaper.  "You flattened all our cities and we rebuilt them properly.  If that had not been the case, we would be living in shitholes like you do."

Even if England wins against Germany, the English will continue to believe, with good reason, that Germany is the boss.