FRANKFURT, July 3 -- The meeting lasted three hours. When it ended, Julian Nagelsmann walked out of the German Football Association's headquarters in Frankfurt with a seven-million-euro severance offer and, by multiple accounts in the German press, the realistic expectation that his time as national coach was over.

German tabloid Bild reported on Thursday that the DFB had placed the €7 million exit figure before Nagelsmann, days after Germany's elimination by Paraguay on penalties in the round of 32, marking the third consecutive early World Cup departure for a nation that won the tournament in 2014 and has not won a knockout match at this one. The German Football Association announced a formal investigation into the tournament fai...