At first glance it looked so simple. Almost a toe-poke, in fact, such was the quickness of thought, and movement. And then, around the mighty Maracana stadium, those in celebration and despair searched for the replay on the giant screens. There it was, in all its glory.
A goal to grace a World Cup final, a goal that was so much more than the sum of its parts. Like Germany, some will say.
Good cross, good finish – but the technique, the technique. This German win is about so much more than efficiency and graft. Yes, they do the basics, too; but it is laced with beauty and aesthetic perfection when it needs to be.
Manuel Neuer will change the way the next generation keeps goal. Thomas Muller deserves to be mentioned beside just about any midfield player in the world, right now; so too Bastian Schweinsteiger. Germany ride adversity, as they did here when the vital Sami Khedira went lame in the warm-up. Their last two performances would deserve victory at just about any World Cup: to defeat Brazil 7-1 on their turf is simply earth-shattering.
The perfect team versus the perfect superstar that was the narrative here. On one side Die National Mannschaft, on the other Lionel Messi. Yet football has a way of confounding such glib expectations. Mario Gotze scored a wonderful team goal, true, but with a level of professional excellence that would have guaranteed Messi the Golden Ball had it came from his foot to win this game. They gave it to him anyway, because that’s FIFA. They’ve got sponsors to serve, and stuff the football.
So how did Germany win this World Cup? In wonderful style. With eight minutes of extra time remaining, Andre Schurrle sprinted down the left. He finally outwitted an exhausted Argentine defence, finding Goetze in space. He took it on his chest, let it fall, finished it left foot on the volley past goalkeeper Sergio Romero. And, making the difficult look easy, the World Cup was done.
The best team won. The first Europeans on South American soil, which takes some doing, and the first team here to stifle Messi while still discovering a route to goal themselves.
No coincidence either that assist and goal are both credited to German substitutes. This is not a team effort, truly, but the work of a group, a squad, a collective. Only Neuer’s understudies in goal and three outfield players were unused here. The rest played a part. Some came and went, others found a niche from the bench.
For Messi, Diego Maradona’s crown might now sit beyond his grasp. He could not conjure the same global triumph of football’s great anti-hero. A last desperate free-kick flew wildly over the bar. The chance to change history at this World Cup passed into oblivion with it.
Messi moments, we call them: that split second when the player many still regard as the finest in the world breaks free, leaves the rest of the species behind and defines the game. He does not miss from there, we know that. One on one, defenders in his wake, only a goalkeeper to guard the target, Messi at that range is like no other. Except here. Except here, in the biggest game of his international career.
In the Maracana, the venue he was going to wrestle from so many famous Brazilians who have never lifted the trophy in this stadium of stadiums. Here, of all places, Messi faltered.
The second-half was minutes old when Lucas Biglia of Lazio played what was quite possibly the pass of the night.
Messi snapped it up, as he always does. It hadn’t been his greatest game, but it hadn’t been his worst either. He was beginning to look leggy, tired, played out as Gary
Lineker, and Messi’s own father, feared. Maradona said you cannot be too spent for a World Cup final, of course, but he did have a rather unique way of pulling himself around.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
The post Germany Crowned World Soccer Champions in Brazil appeared first on Zambia Reports.