Well, I got the result right. But my prediction that it would be a thrilling World Cup final turned out to be wishful thinking. Instead of thrills, we got another tense, low-scoring game, in which both teams accumulated more bookings for bad fouls (two each) than clear-cut chances. By the middle of the second half, it was evident that one goal would settle it, and, in the second period of extra time, Germany nabbed one, thanks to a great piece of finishing by the young striker Mario Götze, who had come on as a substitute.
Germany’s one-nil victory was a fitting but disappointing end to a tournament that started out with great hopes and entertaining soccer, but gradually deteriorated into a series of stalemates and near stalemates. Of course, it was inevitable that things would tighten up in the later stages; but the evolution was an extreme one. During the group stages, a hundred and thirty-six goals were scored—an average of close to three a game. The remaining sixteen games yielded just thirty five goals, and eight of them came in one match: Germany’s seven-one destruction of Brazil. (Another three came in the meaningless playoff for third place.) Of the last seven games that counted, three ended in one-nil victories, and two ended in goal-less ties.
Of course, goals aren’t everything. Contrary to the belief of many soccer newbies, it is possible to have an absorbing nil-nil draw: it’s roughly the equivalent of well-pitched baseball game. And, in fact, the first half of Sunday’s final fit this description. Although Germany controlled most of the possession, Argentina, when it did break away, looked the most likely team to score. In the fourth minute, Gonzalo Higuain, Argentina’s hard-working striker, picked up a stray back pass and shot past the post, and in the twentieth minute he fluffed a much easier chance. Nine minutes later, Higuain managed to shoot the ball into the net but was ruled offside. After that, Germany played better, and, on the stroke of half time, they almost scored, when Benedikt Höwedes, a towering central defender, smashed a header into Argentina’s right-hand post.
If that effort had gone in, the game might well have opened up. Instead, it turned into another war of attrition, with both teams concentrating on getting nine or ten men behind the ball, and obstinately refusing to let anyone on the opposing team make much forward progress. For family reasons, I ended up watching the game in the Black Swan pub in Tivoli, a few miles north of Bard College. As the game progressed, and goalmouth incidents became ever more scarce, I noticed that some people around me were checking their cellphones rather than watching the big screen. At half-time, my wife left for a sandwich. When she got back, half way through the second half, she said, “I went to lunch, and I missed nothing.”
That wasn’t quite true, but much of the action was of the physical variety. Argentina, in particular, was guilty of numerous fouls. If a hack was needed to stop the progress of a German player, one, and sometimes more than one, was immediately forthcoming. Several times, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Germany’s strapping midfield general, went down under clattering challenges. Each time, he got up grimacing—the final time with blood on his face, courtesy of the knuckles of Sergio Agüero, the Argentine striker.
Rather than sending anyone off, which he probably should have done, Nicola Rizzoli, the Italian referee, let the two teams battle it out. As extra time began, the game livened up for a bit, with both sides going close to scoring. But as the first period ended without a breakthrough, a penalty shootout was looking virtually inevitable. Then, in the one-hundred-and-thirteenth minute, André Schürrle, one of Germany’s substitutes, picked up the ball on the left wing and raced forward, escaping his marker. When Schürrle reached the edge of the penalty area, he crossed the ball with his left foot. Götze, who had come on to replace Miroslav Klose, the top scorer in World Cup history, was running towards the six-yard box at full pelt. In one divine move, he paused, controlled the ball on his chest, and spun his left foot to direct a shot past Sergio Romero, Argentina’s goalkeeper, and into the right side of the net.
It was the decisive moment, and it came and went in a flash. As the people around me jumped up and screamed, the cameras showed Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, getting to her feet and clapping. From the German point of view, justice had been served. From the Argentinian perspective, it was simply heartbreak.
In truth, Germany deserved to win—the game and the Cup. Taking the tournament as a whole, it scored the most goals (eighteen); it had the best goal difference (plus fourteen); and it tied with Argentina and Holland for the largest number of games in which it didn’t a concede a goal (four). When Phillipp Lahm, the diminutive captain, raised the gold FIFA World Cup Trophy, nobody, not even the Argentines, could really complain. In the final moments of the game, Lionel Messi, with the dying hopes of all of Argentina resting on his back, had a chance, from a long free kick, to level the game. He booted his shot miles over the bar.
It hadn’t been Messi’s tournament, and, to the dismay of the host nation, it hadn’t been Brazil’s either. Not for the first time, Germany’s application, efficiency, and organization had won out. Come 2018, when Russia will host the World Cup, Merkel’s men will surely be the favorites to repeat this win and draw Germany level with Brazil as the only country to have five World Cup victories. What can Vladimir Putin do to stop them?
Photograph by Laurence Griffiths/Getty.