Saturday’s quarter-final is last chance for eight-time champions to meet expectations after Sweden rout

“A historically lousy Germany” – Welt. “DFB Women Light Years away from the World Top” – Bild. “One big defeat and many small ones” – Der Spiegel. These were just some of the headlines that emerged in the aftermath of Germany’s bruising 4-1 defeat at the hands of Sweden in their final Group C match.

In just a matter of days, the optimism surrounding Germany’s chances has seemingly dissipated. Despite qualifying for the quarter-finals with a game to spare, Christian Wück’s side have looked far from cohesive and defensively frail. They were also exposed by a Sweden attack that understood how to exploit their weaknesses. Carlotta Wamser’s red card was certainly a factor but there are long-standing structural issues that should be a cause for concern with an in-form France to come on Saturday in Basel.

In this week’s newsletter: To celebrate the Guide’s 200th edition, we look back at the films, shows, albums and more that mattered most over the last 25 years

The Guide is 200 issues old today – maybe not the biggest milestone, but one worth marking. So this week we’re doing just that, ending our recent miniseries on the culture of the past 25 years with a listicle spectacular.

We’ve picked a piece of popular culture for each year of the 21st century so far. Which isn’t to say a definitive list of the best culture of the 21st century – the Guardian’s arts desk already did that far more conclusively than we ever could. Instead, we’ve selected 21st-century TV shows, films, plays, podcasts, artworks, albums and games that together hopefully help explain how culture has evolved in that time.

Arrest under the Terrorism Act happened after the man refused to stop displaying the sign when asked by police

A man has been arrested in Glasgow for holding a paper sign allegedly supportive of the proscribed direct action group Palestine Action, the third arrest of its kind across the city in the past week.

Police Scotland confirmed that the 64-year-old man, who had been speaking to a small group of protesters gathered at Nelson Mandela Place in the city centre on Friday afternoon, had been arrested in connection with an offence under the Terrorism Act “for displaying a sign expressing support for a proscribed organisation”.

Atlantaquaria, Galway
Mikel Murfi enters the three-metre-high glass tank to lift weights, look lost and direct fishy traffic

It is hard to tell what the fish make of Mikel Murfi’s intrusion into their deep tank at the Salthill aquarium. Surrounded by rocks, he arranges himself in a sun chair on a small, raft-like deck. Breathing through a long curved tube, an oxygen tank tucked beneath his white shirt, he seems utterly self-sufficient, like a shipwreck survivor, lost in his thoughts.

It is a startling opening to a 45-minute piece that would be called performance art in a gallery. On a bank of seats facing the three-metre-high glass tank, the small audience surveys the specimen in front of them. A dizzyingly inventive physical performer and director, Murfi often collaborates with other theatre, dance and opera artists. Here his director is Kellie Hughes, with designers Sabine Dargent (set) and Sinéad Wallace (lighting). While it seems to flow dreamily, this arresting new work they have created with Loco & Reckless Productions and Galway international arts festival relies on pinpoint precision and skill.

Dorfman theatre, London
Shaan Sahota’s play sets a British-Sikh politician’s schemes against his family betrayal – a tremendous debut from a writer of huge promise

Adeel Akhtar has become a giant of the stage in a few recent fell swoops, it seems. Certainly his creepingly explosive turn in Shaan Sahota’s debut drama is unmissable. It carries this first play, almost eclipsing its imperfections.

Better known for his screen work, he shone darkly in Benedict Andrews’ The Cherry Orchard last year as Chekhov’s peasant-stock merchant with a chip on his shoulder, Lopakhin. Angad, a British-Sikh politician hungry for the top job, is a self-made man too, or so he insists, even if he went to Harrow and Oxford: he calls himself the son of an immigrant baggage handler although his father went on to become a property magnate (and slum landlord, it is suggested) before his unexpected death.

The president has long exploited useful fictions embraced by his supporters. Now he’s trying to change the narrative

Donald Trump’s followers, and the conspiracist influencers turned-government officials through whom he persuades them, have turned on the president and US attorney general after they declared an end to federal inquiries into Jeffrey Epstein’s death. But it would be a mistake to think that the investigation scandal is sui generis. It’s more like the culmination of a long-running trend, one in which Trump’s exploitation of the conspiracist fictions, distrust of institutions, and prurient fascinations of his base have finally come back to bite him.

A pedophile ring at the center of power is a recurring theme in rightwing conspiracy theories of the Trump era. During the 2016 presidential election, supporters of Trump, then an outsider challenger for the Republican nomination, began to spread dark claims about his rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton. Online, far-right trolls and members of the population now called “low trust voters”– people who believe that something nefarious and conspiratorial is going on in the halls of American power, even if they don’t know exactly what – speculated that Clinton was at the head of a massive human trafficking and pedophilic abuse ring based inside Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington DC. There was no secret ring. But that didn’t stop a disturbed man from showing up with a gun.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist