Germany’s historic triumph in Brazil — its fourth World Cup title and the first by a European team in South America — had an air of inevitability about it. Among the many astonishing feats Joachim Low’s side managed, perhaps the most remarkable was reanimating the legend that football is a game two teams play and >Germany wins . For, success is seldom a neat, well-ordered thing; disaster is often just an unavoidable mistake away. But if anyone can conceive and execute a grand idea, never losing sight of the bigger picture while tirelessly attending to the details, it’s Germany. This after all is a football association that built from scratch a training base in Brazil equidistant from all its venues; everything was just so, from the grass on the practice pitches to the cloistered housing arrangements that helped the team bond. Several experts have pointed to the fact that Germany, like Spain in 2010, profited from having a core group from one club, Bayern Munich in this case, Barcelona FC four years ago. It’s an undeniable advantage. However, this view fails to acknowledge Germany’s incredibly systemic work of restructuring the grassroots game and ensuring that a golden generation didn’t slip through the cracks, the success, as Low said, of “a 10-year project.”
And yet it could so easily have been different. Given what was at stake, the final was a tense, cagey affair that appeared as if it would be decided by errors. Argentina, an admirably well-drilled unit, made very few errors while defending. But it couldn’t capitalise on the chances it got. Gonzalo Higuaín, Lionel Messi and Rodrigo Palacio missed one-on-one opportunities. Manuel Neur, adjudged the tournament’s best goalkeeper, had his angles right, but the Argentines didn’t force him into a save. Messi did enough in the World Cup to be deemed its best player; it wasn’t his night, however. Germany’s big-match experience (eight starters had played a Champions League final), ingrained tactical intelligence and collective might proved too strong. When a team can absorb the loss of Marco Reus ahead of the tournament and Sami Khedira >before the final , and still call from the bench Mario Götze for a moment of pure quality, its reserves run very deep indeed. Miroslav Klose, the highest scorer in World Cup history and the lone survivor from the 2002 final, was a reminder of the balance Germany had struck between the old and the new. Determined and clinical, open-minded and creative, the Germans were popular champions of an edition that united the football world more than it divided it. The question whether $13.5 billion of public money was well spent will >need answering in Brazil , but there’s no doubt the country delivered a World Cup that will be fondly remembered for its people and the football.
