Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'A great victory' that was published in Newsband

A great victory

Germany enjoyed a historic triumph in Brazil — its fourth World Cup title and the first by a European team in South America. The final was a tense, cagey affair that appeared as if it would be decided by errors.

Argentina, an admirably well-drilled unit, made very few errors while defending. But it couldn’t capitalise on the chances it got. Germany’s big-match experience, ingrained tactical intelligence and collective might proved too strong. Determined and clinical, open-minded and creative, the Germans were popular champions of an edition that united the football world more than it divided it.

It was a team effort and the most deserving team won the world cup. Argentina although managed to defend well but still they relied too much on Messi whereas Germany had many players to rely on. Both sides fought hard with speed and deft foot work. Argentina failed to convert opportunities into goals. Finally the fittest, speediest, Never-Say-Die team made a furious counter attack and converted an impossible opportunity into a goal showing that team work has always the edge.

Messi did his best. It is true that this man is capable of performing magic with the ball but maybe he was too tired or apathetic and definitely not as enthusiastic for Argentina as he is for Barcelona. As for the Germans, they exhibited tactical game skills from the very beginning of the tournament. Their win was inevitable and finally "the best team" won.

Argentine defense was literally impenetrable. Apart from the header at the end of 1st half Germany came no where near to scoring, that too with more than 60 percent ball possession and the same team had scored 7 goals in its previous match. But you need to score goals to win a football match, and there the Argentine forward failed miserably.

The tournament taught the world a great lesson in team building and not to rest on the laurels of individuals. This world cup tournament had everything. Biting, diving, falling, dancing, crying - all were there on the field. This was also the World Cup where social media made its presence felt emphatically. Sunday’s final was the most discussed sporting event in history on Facebook, with over 280 million ‘likes’, posts and comments. Similarly, during the match 618,725 tweets per minute were generated on Twitter. Clearly, moving beyond water-cooler conversation, the discussion on football has gone global.

Argentina this time defied the worldwide opinion that they were a one-man army. Though they ended on the losing side, they performed admirably in the final. Arguably, they were marginally better than Germany during the course of the 90-minute play. It was quite evident that Germany upped the ante in the extra time, and they were better when it mattered most, and Mario Goetze came up with an amazingly timed and executed goal which curiously reminded one of Andreas Iniesta's goal in the last final. Too bad that Messi and Higuain couldn't convert their chances and that cost them dearly.

Anyway, kudos to Germany for this great win.