Seven wins, no losses, eighteen goals, four goals allowed and a six-goal defeat of the host nation/No.1 team in the world: this is how Germany’s World Cup run looks after Sunday’s 1-0 win over Argentina in the title match.
And I’m here to tell you: they should get better.
While the same thing may’ve been said about Spain after their 2010 World Cup preceded this tournament’s failure, it’s hard to imagine Germany’s future will follow that path. Through the 2016 Euro in France and into the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Die Mannschaft should continue to function at a very, very high level.
[ MORE from our 2014 World Cup review ]
Would you bet against Germany becoming just the third team to win back-to-back World Cups?
Consider:
1) (Most of) the boys will be back
While Miroslav Klose will ride off into the sunset for sure, there are few other on the roster who should be ruled out of competing for the 2018 World Cup trophy. Captain Philipp Lahm will be 34 to go with a trio of 33-year-olds (Bastian Schweinsteiger, Lukas Podolski and Per Mertesacker). Of that group, only Podolski and Mertesacker seem longshots.
Here are the 2018 ages for some key figures in the 2014 run:
Toni Kroos, 28
Thomas Mueller, 28
Andre Schurrle, 27
Sami Khedira, 31
Mario Goetze, 26
Mesut Ozil, 29
Jerome Boateng, 29
Mats Hummels, 29
Benedikt Howedes, 30
Manuel Neuer, 32
Julian Draxler and Matthias Ginter made the side at 20, Christoph Kramer at 23 and Shkodran Mustafi at 22. They’ll seemingly only get better.
2) And those young guys who were on the fringe...
Here’s a list of players Germany left home, and their ages for 2018:
GK Marc-Andre ter Stegen, 26
Marco Reus, 29
Lars Bender, 29
Pierre-Michel Lasogga, 26
Emre Can, 24
Kevin Volland, 25
3) Russia is closer to Germany than Brazil
I know! It surprised me, too.
Aside from falling in the 1998 quarterfinals in France, here are Germany’s finishes in World Cups played in Europe dating back to 1938: third, first, second, first, second, fourth, first.
4) The mighty BuLi!
If there’s a league that can compare to the Premier League, the Bundesliga can make the most claims. And only seven of the 30 players that made up Germany’s preliminary World Cup roster were plying their trade away from the BuLi.