Germany were placed in one of the toughest groups in the tournament, Group G which was also dubbed as the Group of Death as all the teams had potential to make it to the next round. The group consisted of teams from Portugal, United States of America and Ghana along with the Germans. As expected, Germany went into the Last 16 as leaders of the group.
Group Stage:
Match 1: Joachim Loew’s side was drawn against Portugal, led by Cristiano Ronaldo. It was supposed to be a evenly fixed match, more or less, with the former side having a slight advantage. Instead, the Paulo Bento side was ravaged by the Bavarians as they destroyed the A Seleccao team by a 4-0 margin with Thomas Mueller scoring a hat trick. The game was full of incident as their spearhead in defense Pepe was red carded for head-butting Mueller.
Here’s a highlight of the game:
Match 2: The Germans faced Ghana and the score line ended in a 2-2 draw with goals coming from Gotze and their legend Miroslav Klose. This was the match where Klose equalized the all-time World Cup goals record of former Brazilian ace Ronaldo. Ghana gave a scare for the 2010 semi-finalists as they dominated with most attempts on goals. Nevertheless, the Africans couldn’t get the better of Deutschland team.
Match 3: They next faced USA and secured their Last 16 spot with a narrow 1-0 victory. It was surprising to see that a gifted team like Germany had to wait for their final group game to confirm their pre-quarter finals berth.
Last 16:
Match 4: Algeria was their first knockout round opponent who looking to avenge the injustice from 32 years ago. The Germans played a fierce and spirited North African side that was intent on spoiling their campaign as they dragged the game into extra time but the giants somehow managed to find two crucial goals in the additional Extra time to squeak past with a 2-1 victory.
Quarter-Finals:
Match 5: The Bavarians faced an evenly matched France side that performed
better than them as they dominated the play, yet failed to convert their attempts into goals. Mats Hummels, the centre-back was the sole goal-scorer of the game as the Phillip Lahm led team heaved a sigh of relief after they gained a 1-0 victory and sent the French side packing.
Semi-Finals:
Match 6: This was probably Germany’s best semi-finals as they crushed the home side to a humiliating 7-1 defeat, also Brazil’s worst World Cup defeat surpassing the defeat against Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup also called “Maracanazo” and plunged the host nation into sadness. This performance has now pegged them as the favorites going into Sunday’s finals.
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