RIO DE JANEIRO–Joachim Loew has shaped a tal­ent­ed Ger­man gen­er­a­tion in­to an en­ter­tain­ing and suc­cess­ful team with a his­to­ry of near miss­es. Ger­many needs to beat Ar­genti­na in to­day's World Cup de­cider to fi­nal­ly make Loew a win­ner.Loew's achieve­ments and the in­no­va­tions he has brought in­to Ger­man foot­ball will al­ways be recog­nised.But un­less he wins the ti­tle his tenure will be re­gard­ed as a par­tial suc­cess, even con­sid­er­ing the as­tound­ing 7-1 win over Brazil in the se­mi-fi­nals.

Loew's job is se­cure – his con­tract had been ex­tend­ed through the 2016 Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onship be­fore the World Cup. But if Ger­many fails to beat Ar­genti­na at the Mara­cana and falls short of the ti­tle in Loew's fourth straight tour­na­ment in charge, he may not be able to shake off the rep­u­ta­tion of a coach who can't win ti­tles."It's al­ways dis­ap­point­ing to lose a fi­nal, but this team has a fu­ture and I am not wor­ried," Loew said yes­ter­day.

Ger­many lost the 2008 Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onship fi­nal to Spain, which al­so beat Ger­many two years lat­er in the World Cup semi­fi­nals.With the Ger­man pub­lic ex­pect­ing noth­ing less than the ti­tle at Eu­ro 2012, Loew's team lost to Italy in the se­mi-fi­nals, with the coach wide­ly blamed for the de­feat by pick­ing wrong tac­tics and wrong play­ers.Loew was Ju­r­gen Klins­mann's as­sis­tant for two years be­fore tak­ing over af­ter the 2006 World Cup.He was wide­ly cred­it­ed for be­ing the mas­ter­mind be­hind the tac­tics of Klins­mann's team. (AP)