World Cup 2014: Germany's demolition of Portugal shows world is turning upside down
The rule that Latin American World Cups cannot be won by European teams is under threat after stunning wins by Holland and Germany, whose imperious demolition of Portugal here in Salvador took them a leap closer to a first trophy since Euro 96, 18 years ago.
This tournament could turn a few orthodoxies upside down. In Brazilian heat the southern European nations of Spain and Portugal have been smashed by the northern heavyweights, Holland and Germany, who scored 5-1 and 4-0 victories. With their swarm of rotating midfielders, Joachim Löw’s Nationalmannschaft demoralised the world’s best footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, and took a decisive hold on Group G, where Ghana and Jürgen Klinsmann’s USA will now brace themselves for the games in Fortaleza and Recife.
Watched by their Chancellor, Angela Merkel, Germany marked their 100th World Cup fixture with a win that justified the cost of them building their own training complex at Porto Seguro. There will have been a lot of jumping up from the 850 sofas laid on a pitch in a stadium in Berlin in front of a 700-inch screen.
Germany generally start this way. In 1990 they beat Yugoslavia 4-1, in 2002 they defeated Saudi Arabia 8-0 and eight years ago on home turf put four without reply past Australia. They have lost only one of their last 19 group stage games: a 1-0 reverse to Serbia four years ago. Germany’s talent for gliding through the opening rounds is not disputed. The problems tend to start further down the road, when they sometimes fail to react to problems presented by superpower opposition. But this win was exhilarating: a mismatch, once Pepe had been sent off on 37 minutes for another show of thuggishness, but also a supreme demonstration of German midfield strength.
Thomas Müller shot to the top of the golden boot chart with Mats Hummels scoring Germany’s third from a corner. Even with Toni Kroos playing deeper than Sami Khedira – who was allowed to surge forward while Kroos stayed back – Löw’s tactic of using Müller as a genuine centre-forward rather than a ‘false’ No 9 paid spectacular dividends. Mesut Özil, Mario Götze, Kroos and Khedira rendered Portugal’s midfield almost invisible. The loss of Marco Reus to injury was no handicap against a Portuguese team who looked psychologically raddled from the moment Joao Pereira pulled down Götze for Müller’s penalty.
