Germany became the latest defending champion to crash out of the World Cup at the first hurdle, part of a trend but definitely not part of the plan when Germany arrived here.

A smooth-running    1    machine when it won the Cup in 2014, Germany now appears in need of a reform after losing,2-0,to South Korea here on Wednesday and saying goodbye to Russia about three weeks earlier than many expected.

It has been the earliest exit for a German team at the World Cup since 1938,which seems even more     2    when you consider Hitler was then the country's leader and only 15 teams participated.

With stars like Kroos, Mesut Özil and Mats Hummels, Germany won every match in    3    for this World Cup, the first German team to do so. But it could not even    4    it out of the group phase in Russia.

There seems to be a World Cup curse at    5    .Since the 1998 edition, the defending champion has been eliminated in the group phase on four occasions: France in 2002, Italy in 2010, Spain in 2014 and now Germany.

But this team's early exit was still a(n)    6    shock, and Joachim Löw, the German coach since 2006, used that same word—"shock," in his own language-to describe the experience on Wednesday.

“The    7    of being eliminated is just huge,” said Löw, who added that the team deserved to go out early.

“It turned    8    . I must take responsibility for this.”

A four-time World Cup winner, Germany was a finalist in 2002, third in 2006 and 2010 and the champion in 2014 after dealing the host nation of Brazil a 7-1 defeat in the semifinals, the     9    of which still leaves many Brazilians in pain.

The Germans certainly have historical company, however. The list of defending champions to lose very early shows how    10    it is to maintain momentum and focus with national teams whose players practice and play together much less frequently than they do with their clubs.

When most of us recall our school sporting days, we tend to remember the friendships that were forged, the occasional personal     1    and the far more frequent moments when our skill levels didn't quite match our idols'. However, not all of the present generation of schoolchildren may be able to look back on their sporting experiences with such fondness. There are growing fears, within independent schools in particular, that moves towards professional standards and a focus on winning may disagree with the     2     of school sports.

The problem is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more prevalent in boys' sport, and especially so in rugby, where independent schools still provide the bulk of future England internationals. At the same time, there has been a surge in the number of schools offering scholarships to     3    rugby players, driven by a desire to widen access, but also, on occasion, by a(n)     4    that success on the playing field may be a potential marketing tool. One director of rugby at a top-performing school in the South-East reports that his star under-16 player was poached(挖走)by a rival school which offered him a full scholarship. ‘We weren’t prepared to enter into a bidding war over a 15-year-old kid,’ he says rather pitifully.

Chris Morgan, director of sport at Tonbridge, is a critic of these shifts towards becoming superstar sports schools, 'An increasing number of schools seem to be using sports scholarships as part of their business model,’ he says. ‘They place rugby above other sports as it seems to be more    5    in parents’ decision-making over which school they want to send their children to.’

As a result, some of Morgan's counterparts at other independent schools feel under pressure to focus on winning rather than    6     enjoyment. ‘If everything you put on your website is about which teams won, it is easy to see how coaches, boys and parents can think that results are the most important barometer of success.’

Several coaches feel that their efforts to     7    players’ enjoyment over results are at risk of being undermined by the temptation to see sport as an extension of academic league tables.

One director of rugby told me that whenever they lose a game, his headmaster calls a meeting on the Monday morning in which he demands an explanation for the defeat. ‘The head can't understand that sport isn't just about winning,’ he says.

So, with increasingly professional set-ups and a seeming     8    with winning at all costs, has school sport lost its innocence?

Certainly not, says Kevin Knibbs, Headmaster of Hampton School in South West London, and Chair of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference(HMC)Sports Sub-Committee ‘Independent schools understand that sport is hugely beneficial to young people. While there have been substantial improvements in the standard of sports facilities, coaching, and performance in independent schools over the past decade, this is    9     with, an emphasis on safety, wellbeing and general fitness. Together these things have had a(n)     10    positive impact on young people’s experiences of sport in HMC schools, ' he says. 'Pupils are free to enjoy playing a wide range of sports with their friends without facing undue pressure to wip or needing to follow an over-intensive training regime, Knibbs continue.

The throngs of tourists flooding Russian cities for the World Cup are expected to provide a(n)     1     boost to the country’s economy. However, the influx has proved difficult for some host cities to fully     2     visitors.

In the city of Samara, where England will play Sweden on Saturday in a quarterfinal match, water pressure is decreasing due to a(n)     3     in customers. In response, the city utility company has offered an unusual solution to mitigate(缓解) the low pressure. The proposal by the city’s water system authorities was     4     in a simple statement. “Save water, take showers in pairs,” the company said, accompanying its     5     with a smiley face.

The Moscow Times reported the water authorities have increased output in recent days to compensate for the visitors, but the utility company is still trying to     6     residents about the strains placed on the water service. Rather than trying to change the habits of visitors, the water service has asked locals to alter their daily     7    .

“Thousands of the city’s visitors, who also consume water, are     8     to the increase,” the utility company, Samarskiye Kommunalniye Systemy, wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

The city has also experienced a heat wave that has increased the     9     for water during the tournament. The Associated Press reported said that medical staff distributed water to fans traveling to last month’s game between Russia and Uruguay via public transit.

Utility issues also arose when Russia hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The host nation seemed unable to provide the infrastructure needed to host athletes, fans, reporters and others who attended the tournament. Journalists who visited the city to report on the games     10     discolored and brown water coming out of faucets.