SANTO ANDRE: Germany captain Philipp Lahm and forward Thomas Mueller sounded supremely confident on Friday that their team will be able to neutralise Argentina’s Lionel Messi and win the World Cup on Sunday.

The two players told reporters that Germany have more talent, more experience, an extra day’s rest and more than enough confidence to beat Argentina the way they did in the 1990 final and the quarter-finals in 2006 and 2010.

“We’re here to win the World Cup,” said Lahm. “We all enjoyed watching the [Argentina-Nether­lands] semi-final on TV and it didn’t matter to us at all who we’d play in the final.”

Lahm said Germany players not only have more experience in the latter rounds of the World Cup that will help on Sunday but also every player on the team has played in the finals of the Cham­pions League, German Cup or cup final in England.

“The experience we’ve got all the way through our team is definitely an edge for us,” he said. “A lot of our players have experience in important final matches with their clubs and it doesn’t always matter if they won or lost. I think that deep experience everyone on our team has is definitely important for a tournament like this.”

Mueller said that there was an abundance of confidence on the team with its “golden generation” that has made it to at least the semi-finals of the last four World Cups and the last three European championships.

“I’ve been telling friends back home that we’re going all out here so that you can keep having those barbecue parties to celebrate during the best time,” said Mueller.

“I’m not expecting that we’ll be ahead 5-0 at half time again like against Brazil even though that would be nice,” he said, reflecting an optimism back home in Germany that it’s no longer a question of “If” but only a matter of “by how many goals” they’ll win.

“It could end up being a tight match like against Algeria or France. But it doesn’t matter.”

“Unfortunately we won’t be going to Rio to take a guided tour or to get to know the magic of the city,” he said. “There’s only one reason to go there: to pick up the World Cup trophy. We know what we have to do.”

Mueller further said scoring again in the final would help the team beat Argentina as well as help him win a second Golden Boot for most goals scored after he won it in 2010 with five goals.

“If I score that will help in both competitions,” he said, adding winning was more important to him.

About Messi he said: “We’ve all got to stay on his heels and try to keep disrupting him. As soon as he gets away from one of us, the next guy has to jump in and be on him and so on until we get the ball back.”

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2014