IF Germany were to lift the trophy at the Maracana Stadium on Sunday, not only will it mark the highest point for what is dubbed as the country’s golden generation but also make them the first team from Europe to win the World Cup in Latin America.
Only Lionel Messi’s magical feet stand between them and Germany’s fourth World Cup title now.
Germany have arguably been the tournament’s best team with their 7-1 thrashing of Brazil in the semi-final in Belo Horizonte merely reflecting on this side’s ruthless efficiency.
This is a team which has been consistent over the years but hadn’t been able to crack the glass ceiling above them — the glass ceiling between them and the final.
Having lost in the semi-finals in both previous editions of the World Cup, this time though, the likes of Phillip Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Mueller and Toni Kroos were finally able to reach the showpiece final in Brazil.
Victory against Argentina on Sunday would serve as the ultimate affirmation of a master plan devised 10 years ago to revive a failing Die Mannschaft.
In the summer of 2004, Germany exited the European Championships at the group stage. This had come two years after they had been beaten finalists at the World Cup.
The German football federation — the DFB — decided it was time for an overhaul.
In came former striker Juergen Klinsmann — the man who led Germany to their last international title, the 1996 European Championships — as head coach.
The DFB also forced its hand on the Bundesliga clubs to start youth development programmes which would eventually see stars like Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira come through.
Most of the national team’s current players have grown up together through global youth tournaments, to make them a team which can handle the pressures of big tournaments.
Khedira and Ozil were part of the German team which won the European U-21 Championships in 2009.
They would probably be one of six players from that team in Germany’s starting eleven at the Maracana on Sunday alongside goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and defenders Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng and Benedikt Howedes.
It was Klinsmann, though, changed the mentality of the team.
To begin with, he made the national team play with greater passion, energy and more beautiful football rather than their old philosophy of winning at all costs.
When Klinsmann left the helm following their semi-final exit at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the reins fell to his assistant Joachim Loew.
Loew took the side to the final of European Championships in 2008 where they lost to a Spanish side at the start of a golden era which would see them dominate world football for the next six years.
Spain beat them again in the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa but there was no denying that Loew’s side had been the most exciting team of the tournament.
The team fell again at the semi-final hurdle at the European Championships two years ago and it looked that Germany’s ‘golden generation’ didn’t have the mental strength to win silverware.
On Sunday, that ‘golden generation’ will be playing for its legacy.
The two mainstays of that crop, Lahm and Schweinsteiger will be 34 by the time the next World Cup will be held in Russia. This probably represents their best chance to win a World Cup.
For one Miroslav Klose, though, this will certainly be the last chance for the title.
At 36, Klose is the World Cup’s all time highest goal-scorer — a record he set during their demolition of Brazil — and the only member in the current side which lost the last final Germany played back in 2002.
Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2014