Photo: German football party and cheering in Berlin during the 2014 Fifa World Cup Final (source: WirtschaftsWoche).
From my perspective, Germany was the RIGHT team to hold the Fifa 2014 World Cup trophy in Rio last night. The Germans have played with great enthusiasm, determination, creativity, team-spirit, tactical awareness and a stable and strong performance rate throughout the entire tournament (despite a few defensive bumps against Ghana and Algeria). However, Argentina created some great chances in the final, maybe due to the fact that Germany had to re-structure a lot centrally on the midfield with Khedira out and injuries along the way versus an offensively gifted opponent, but often people forget the idea of the goal keeper when speaking about formations like 4-4-2, 4-3-3 etc. It lies in the wording, i.e. 4-4-2. I would say that Germany with the strength of Manuel Neuer plays a 1-4-2-3-1 system and I definitely think that the presence of Neuer may have played a role when the Argentinian players missed the target in open positions. This scenario mirrors my point that Germany has a ‘somewhat’ complete team with great individual qualities. This fact is also reflected in Mario Götze’s brilliant goal when he came on as a substitute for the all-time Fifa World Cup top-scorer Miroslav Klose. By the way, André Schürrle, another super-sub, assisted the goal.
Photo: DFB’s celebration of the great accomplishment of the German national team (source: DFB’s web site).
Overall, Germany completed the World Cup as the ‘perfect team’. They did not play their best game against Argentina and they gave away more opportunities than usually, probably due to a lot of re-structuring, too much misinterpreted possession in part of the final that did not challenge Argentina’s defense and the quality of the opponent, but they still came out as winners and in my world they deserved the win based on the entire span of the tournament. The win portrays an important accomplishment for German football. Germany is the first European team to win in South America and the way in which Germany did it sends a message about a nation that came through and paved the way to success by playing entertaining, possession-minded, creative, modern and effective football, which culminated when the team won the final and especially when they tore Brazil apart in the semi-final. German and world media have celebrated the team’s achievement yesterday and today. In that regard, it is worth mentioning that this modern re-positioning of German football, that started years ago and gave us a taste of yesterday’s great title throughout relative good runs for Germany in other national team competitions and the strong performances of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich in European club competitions, boosts the popularity of football in Germany, the German self-understanding, and the brand-transfer found in Germany’s association with quality. So in many ways, this re-positioning and the successful implementation of the factors leading to this successful journey act as good drivers for other areas of the German society. As a nation, it is a great accomplishment to win the most important title in the world’s most popular sport.
This one is pretty funny, cf. below:
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