Sad as the Spanish repeatedly beat Germany back (11)
I believe the answer is:
regrettable
'sad' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the spanish repeatedly beat germany back' is the wordplay.
'the spanish' becomes 'el'.
'repeatedly beat' becomes 'batter' (battering is a kind of beating. I am not sure about the 'repeatedly' bit.).
'germany' becomes 'ger' (I've seen this in other clues).
'back' is a reversal indicator.
'el'+'batter'+'ger'='elbatterger'
'elbatterger' reversed gives 'REGRETTABLE'.
'as' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for regrettable that I've seen before include "Undesirable" , "Unfortunate" , "ill-advised" .)