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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Brazil 2014

Goetze scores late to give Germany Cup

by

20140713

RIO DE JANEIRO–With two quick touch­es, Mario Goet­ze end­ed Ger­many's 24-year wait for an­oth­er World Cup ti­tle.

Goet­ze scored the win­ning goal in ex­tra time to give Ger­many a 1-0 vic­to­ry over Ar­genti­na yes­ter­day in a tight and tense World Cup fi­nal that came down to one piece of in­di­vid­ual skill.

Goet­ze, who wasn't born when West Ger­many beat Ar­genti­na in the 1990 fi­nal, con­trolled a cross with his chest in the 113th minute and in one flu­id mo­tion volleyed the ball past goal­keep­er Ser­gio Romero and in­side the far post.

It was a goal that gave Ger­many its fourth World Cup ti­tle in its eighth fi­nal, and left Ar­genti­na star Li­onel Mes­si still walk­ing in the shad­ow of his com­pa­tri­ot Diego Maradona, who led his coun­try to the 1986 ti­tle.

Goet­ze had come on as a sub­sti­tute for Miroslav Klose to­ward the end of reg­u­la­tion time and the 22-year-old mid­field­er's fresh legs made the dif­fer­ence.

An­dre Schuer­rle broke down the left flank, send­ing his cross in­to the area, and the Bay­ern Mu­nich play­er did the rest with a clin­i­cal fin­ish. The goal echoed that of An­dres Ini­es­ta's four years ago, when the mid­field­er scored in sim­i­lar fash­ion but from the oth­er side of the area to give Spain a 1-0 ex­tra time win over the Nether­lands.

For Ger­many, the win ends a string of near miss­es since win­ning its last ma­jor ti­tle at the 1996 Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onship. The team lost the 2002 World Cup fi­nal to Brazil and lost in the semi­fi­nals in both 2006 and 2010.

It is Ger­many's first World Cup ti­tle as a uni­fied na­tion, hav­ing won as West Ger­many in 1954, 1974 and 1990. It was al­so the third World Cup fi­nal be­tween these coun­tries and had been billed as a matchup be­tween the per­fect team and the per­fect in­di­vid­ual, pit­ting Ger­many's ma­chine-like unit against the bril­liance of Mes­si, the four-time world play­er of the year.

But in the biggest game of his ca­reer, Mes­si came up short.

He had one good chance to score when he was sent free in the area just af­ter the half­time break, but sent his shot wide of the far post. It was a dif­fi­cult an­gle, but still the type of chance he so of­ten con­verts for Barcelona.

Mes­si threat­ened in­ter­mit­tent­ly through­out the match, but was ef­fec­tive­ly neu­tral­ized for long stretch­es. When he did try to break for­ward with one of his quick drib­bles, he was sur­round­ed by the Ger­man de­fense.

His free kick in the 120th minute went well high.

When the fi­nal whis­tle blew, Ger­many play­ers col­lapsed in a pile in the mid­dle of the pitch, while Mes­si walked with his hands on his hips to­ward the cen­ter cir­cle.

Mes­si, who scored four goals in the group stage but none in the knock­out rounds, then had to trudge alone up the stairs of the Mara­cana Sta­di­um to ac­cept the Gold­en Ball award for the tour­na­ment's best play­er, shak­ing hands with Ger­man Chan­cel­lor An­gela Merkel along the way. He nev­er broke a smile. Ger­many goal­keep­er Manuel Neuer was vot­ed best goal­keep­er of the tour­na­ment.

Up un­til Goet­ze's win­ning goal, the game was more no­table for top-class de­fend­ing than cre­ative at­tack­ing, but both teams had their share of chances.

In fact, the first half had just about every­thing but a goal.

Gon­za­lo Higuain was gift­ed a free chance when Toni Kroos' back head­er land­ed at his feet and left him all alone with Neuer. How­ev­er, he sent his shot woe­ful­ly wide.

Higuain thought he had scored in the 30th af­ter Mes­si picked out Eze­quiel Lavezzi with a great ball and he sent a cross in to­ward the Napoli strik­er. Higuain slot­ted in his fin­ish in­side the far post and ran all the way to the cor­ner flag in cel­e­bra­tion be­fore re­al­is­ing he had been called for off­side.

Short­ly af­ter­ward, Ger­many was forced to use a sub­sti­tu­tion as Christoph Kramer had to go off with a sus­pect­ed con­cus­sion af­ter col­lid­ing with Eze­quiel Garay's shoul­der ear­li­er in the game. Kramer had con­tin­ued play­ing but looked vis­i­bly dizzy as he was led off the field. Kramer, who was a late in­clu­sion in the line­up af­ter Sa­mi Khedi­ra was in­jured dur­ing the warmup, was re­placed by Schuer­rle.

Ger­many's best chance came just be­fore the break when Benedikt Hoewedes hit the post with a head­er from a cor­ner.

The game grew more cagey in the sec­ond half as both teams be­came in­creas­ing­ly cau­tious, know­ing that a sin­gle mis­take could make the dif­fer­ence.

In ex­tra time, both teams had chances to score ear­ly. Schuer­rle con­trolled a ball in the area just af­ter the restart and fired a hard shot that Romero had to re­act quick­ly to push out.

In the 97th, Pala­ca­cio con­trolled a cross on his chest and tried to lob Neuer, but the ball drift­ed wide of the post.

Match facts

�2 Ger­many have won the World Cup for a fourth time. On­ly Brazil (5) have more wins.

�2 Ar­genti­na con­ced­ed a goal in ex­tra time at the World Cup for the first time.

�2 Ar­genti­na failed to have a shot on tar­get in a World Cup game for the first time since the 1990 fi­nal v West Ger­many.

�2 Ger­many are the first Eu­ro­pean team to win a World Cup in the Amer­i­c­as.

�2 Ger­many's to­tal of 18 goals is the most in a World Cup since Brazil scored 18 in 2002.

�2 Ar­genti­na on­ly trailed for sev­en min­utes in the en­tire tour­na­ment.

Line-up, book­ings (4) & sub­sti­tu­tions (6)

Ger­many

01 Neuer

16 Lahm

04 H�wedes Booked

07 Schwe­in­steiger Booked

20 Boateng

05 Hum­mels

23 Kramer (Sch�rrle–32' )

18 Kroos

11 Klose (G�tze–88' )

13 M�ller

08 �zil (Merte­sack­er–120' )

Ar­genti­na

01 Romero

04 Za­bale­ta

16 Ro­jo

14 Mascher­a­no Booked

15 Demiche­lis

02 Garay

22 Lavezzi (Ag�ero–45' Booked )

06 Biglia

09 Higua�n (Pala­cio–78' )

10 Mes­si

08 P�rez (Ga­go–86' )

Ref­er­ee: Nico­la Riz­zoli

At­ten­dance: 74,738

World Cup Fi­nal Re­sults

2014–Ger­many 1, Ar­genti­na 0, ex­tra time

2010–Spain 1, Nether­lands 0, ex­tra time

2006–Italy 1, France 1, Italy won 5-3 on penal­ty kicks

2002–Brazil 2, Ger­many 0

1998–France 3, Brazil 0

1994–Brazil 0, Italy 0, Brazil won 3-2 on penal­ty kicks

1990–West Ger­many 1, Ar­genti­na 0

1986–Ar­genti­na 3, West Ger­many 2

1982–Italy 3, West Ger­many 1

1978–Ar­genti­na 3, Nether­lands 1, ex­tra time

1974–West Ger­many 2, Nether­lands 1

1970–Brazil 4, Italy 1

1966–Eng­land 4, West Ger­many 2, ex­tra time

1962–Brazil 3, Czecho­slo­va­kia 1

1958–Brazil 5, Swe­den 2

1954–West Ger­many 3, Hun­gary 2

1950–Uruguay 2, Brazil 1

1938–Italy 4, Hun­gary 2

1934–Italy 2, Czecho­slo­va­kia 1, ex­tra time

1930–Uruguay 4, Ar­genti­na 2


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