A Soccer Fairy Tale

Do you remember: summer 2006, "The Miracle Summer"? The Soccer World Cup was played in Germany and Jürgen Klinsmann – now coach of the U.S. team – and his assistant Jogi Löw had formed a young team of players who fought their hearts out and finished third. The very same (3rd rank) happend in 2010 in South Africa, then with Löw in the head coach’s position. Change of scene – summer 2014: The Happy End!

After 24 years Germany is back on top and the new soccer World Champion – the fourth time since 1994, 1974 and 1990. Who would have thought that about four weeks ago? We both remember 1974 (2:1 against the Netherlands in Munich) and 1990 (1:0 against Argentina in Rome), 1954 was before our time, but the win against Hungary in Zurich (and the famous radio coverage) is well-known. However, there were also heartbreaking losses: 1966 against England, 2002 against Brazil or the two defeats in the semifinal 2006 against Italy and 2010 against Spain.

But, hands down, in July 2014 the German team was the best soccer team by far. In every game they showed great technical qualities in controlling and passing the ball, their tactical system was flexible and coach Löw always figured out the right answer to every opponent. "Jogi’s boys" played with heart, enthusiasm, spirit and pure will.

They outplayed Portugal masterfully in game 1 (4:0), in game 2 they made mistakes only in defense and had problems to get used to the defensively-minded, physically oriented team from Ghana (2:2). The German team played cleverly again against a very focused U.S. team (1:0, coached by former German head coach Jürgen Klinsmann), but had problems with another defensively/physically acting Algerian team in the first round of the playoffs. Tactical changes in extra time payed out so that the match ended 2:1 aet). The quarterfinal against France was a masterpiece - a highly controlled tactical game (1:0), the semifinal against a confused acting Brazilian team a sensational lifetime game which ended 7:1! The final against the "Masters of Defense and Destruction" from Argentina was dominated by huge will, enthusiasm, fight and team spirit as well as cleverness (1:0 aet).

Germany won the World Cup because they played as a team with huge team spirit, not because of some superstar like e.g. Brasil (Neymar), Argentina (Messi) or Portugal (Ronaldo). The Germans acted as a team with 23 stars: with Manuel Neuer, "Hercules between the posts" and No. 1 goalie worldwide; guys like Philipp Lahm, Jerome Boateng, Mats Hummels, Per Mertesacker, Benedikt Höwedes as defensive players; playmakers like Toni Kroos, Mesut Özil, Sami Khedira, Christoph Kramer and the unbelievably fighting Bastian Schweinsteiger and, eventually, on offense Miro Klose (with 16 goals over three world cups the best scorer in the history of world cup soccer), Thomas Müller (running like a rabbit and shooting from every position), André Schürrle or Mario Götze (who became famous with his spectacular decisive goal in the final). What a team! By the way, 5 to 7 players of the team on the field were from Bavaria Munich.

The whole country was celebrating till early morning and many (including us) have a hangover today. Almost 35 mio. people watched at home on TV (an all-time high), millions were gathered in pubs and in – what we call – „public viewing areas“ like in front of the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin (almost half a million, despite of rain and thunderstorms). Tomorrow the team will be welcomed back home with a big parade and celebration in Berlin. Wished we could be there.

Goalie Neuer said in an interview yesterday after the game: „We will celebrate for five weeks – and afterwards we will wake up every morning with a big smile on the face!“ Hopefully so, because WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!