Although it’s Monday there’s no mystery today about what the topic has to be: Germany won the World Cup last night!

We did follow the U.S. team’s performance in the tournament; in fact, we watched most of the games we could. We even sat in a bar at lunchtime in Baltimore and watched the big U.S. vs. Germany game, which was fun.

Here in Germany we have watched more Fußball, to use the German term, than we’d ever done in the past. I blogged 2 years ago about the European Fußball championship, and how we’d enjoyed watching that.  At the time, I’d commented about how the German commentator was totally over the top as the Spanish won that title in 2012.  I didn’t actually notice the same over the top comments throughout the World Cup 2014 games the past two weeks, though. But then last night, the commentator was so (amusingly) involved in the match with his comments that it was again strikingly over-the-top. For example, at one point he was excitedly exclaiming  “yes! yes! yes!” as a German striker broke away toward the opponents goal with the ball, only to mutter dejectedly “oh. oh. [heavy sign] oh. [sigh]” as the Argentinian defense deflected the German surge.  He repeatedly said something that sounded like “uh-oh” when one of the Argentinians approached the German goal with the ball, but Chris later speculated it was just the commentator’s accent when he pronounced the name of an Argentinian player, Marcos Rojo. But it was funnier to think he was saying, as Chris and I were, “uh-oh! The Germans need to watch out now!” with his uttered “uh-oh”.

Anyway, it was more fun that I would have thought a couple of years ago watching the games in the World Cup Tournament. And of course, exciting to be in Germany when Germany finally won after years of re-building their strategy and team. Was there dancing in the streets near us afterwards, as someone  emailed and asked me?  Well, by the time the game ended and the trophy was awarded,  it was midnight here in Germany. There was no dancing in the street outside our windows that we saw before we headed to bed. 😉

Anyway, last night’s game was exciting, in a more competitive way than the crazy, surreal spectacle on Tuesday that was the Germany-Brazil semi-final. Last night there were so many near misses and what-if moments in the game, as each side tried to find a way to score, it was hard to pick which team was really going to triumph in the end. Both sides seemed to benefit from bad calls and a bit of luck when their opponents had perfect opportunities to score, but inexplicably missed.

On the German side, they substituted in a young guy before the end of regulation play to replace one of their top players who was clearly spent. The new guy made kind of a rookie mistake in not setting up one of his teammates to take the shot when he got the ball, excitedly trying to lob the ball in from far away himself. He missed, and time ran out, resulting in the game ending (after regular play) in a 0-0- tie. That push things into overtime. The young guy’s mistake was all the talk of the commentary on the TV, as well as in live chat sessions online, during  the break before the overtime periods started. The rant was that the experienced teammates had been in perfect positions to score for Germany (and therefore win  the game). Therefore the young guy, who didn’t have international play experience, had blown it and was destined to be remembered for the guy who’d lost the game for Germany.

I thought that was a bit unfair, actually, since his teammates had had other chances to score before he’d come on the field to play, and they hadn’t ever been able to convert a play.  Sure, the young guy could have passed it to one of them, but what was the guarantee that his teammates would have been able to score?

Ah, but destiny had a different note in the history books in mind for this young man, and today, nobody’s talking about that moment at all. Why? Well, you see that young guy was Mario Goetze, who made a textbook-perfect play and scored with 7 minutes left to go in overtime, putting Germany ahead 1-0.

Of course, that 7 minutes to go was actually not trivial. It’s interesting to me that in Fußball, the overtime is not a “sudden death” variety. It never is.  If the game goes to overtime after the regulation 90 minutes of play, then they play two more mini periods of 15 minutes each. So, with Germany ahead 1-0, Argentina was not completely out of it. There was still those 7 minutes left to play.

And, Argentina has on their team the man considered the best Fußball player in the world today, Lionel Messi. He’s won every award there is … except for a World Cup title.

So by some accounts, yesterday was supposed to be Messi’s date with destiny.

Which it was, I guess. Just not how he would have imagined.  With just seconds to go in overtime, and with Germany up 1-0, one of the German players committed a foul against Messi. This gave Messi a free kick, though, in a position a bit far from the goal to be an easy shot — or at least so said the German commentator on TV as well as my in-house expert sitting beside me on the couch.

But still.  Messi – the greatest Fußballer of his generation, had a chance to shoot and send the ball sailing over the heads of his opponents into the goal. OK, true, it was a little further down the field than a typical placement for that kind of shot.

And true, he’d need to outwit the German goalie, the best in the world in his own role.

And true, Messi hadn’t scored in the previous 120 minutes of the game.

But still. This had destiny — or at least a movie script — all over it, no?

Messi places the ball on the ground, eyes the players on the field
He knows that to make the shot the his teammates must not yield.
Knowing this is do or die, he draws back his foot and lets it fly.
The crowd draws its breath, their hearts stand still.
Can that ball bend to Messi’s will?

Oh, somewhere in a favored land the sun is shining bright;
A band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
In Germany men laugh, for another’s destiny has been denied,
But there is no joy in Argentina — mighty Messi’s shot went wide.
* With Apologies to Ernest Thayer, the author of Casey at the Bat.

OK, I’ll admit that’s a little over the top, but I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep the past week, what with all staying up for all the World Cup matches. it was an exciting finish, though, to a game that could have gone either way. Congratulations to the German team for being the World Cup 2014 Champs!