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| Mats Hummels (L) of Germany celebates scoring his team's first goal with his teammate Bastian Schweinsteiger during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Quarter Final match between France and Germany at Maracana on July 4, 2014 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Shaun Botterill - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images) |
The weather was hot, the performance dreary, and the result inevitable. In a match that stuck stubbornly close to a predictable script, Germany ousted France, 1-0, Friday for a quarterfinal victory in sticky Rio de Janeiro.
The lone goal came early, which only made this game between former World Cup champions seem to drag on longer. On a set piece from the left side in the 13th minute, Toni Kroos looped a dangerous cross into the box, where Mats Hummels outleaped France defender Raphael Varane and flicked the ball past goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
“This is the next dream to become reality here in Brazil and I hope it’s not the last, either,” Hummels told ARD television in Germany.
Germany became the first team in the history of the World Cup to qualify for four successive semifinals — a remarkable show of reliability over a 12-year span. Hummels, meanwhile was the first defender to score two goals at this tournament.
Kroos, a midfielder, is known so widely for his accurate service that he is nicknamed “Garcon,” the French word for waiter.
“If you’re talking about the term ‘Garcon’ in the sense of setting up my teammates with good passes, that’s all right,” Kroos had said earlier in the tournament. “But when we’re sitting around together in the evening, I’m not the waiter. I prefer to be served myself then.”
The Germans were heavily criticized at home after their difficult win over Algeria in the Round of 16, and may face more complaints after this rather dull match. “We’re in the semifinals, so who cares about anything else,” defensive defender Philipp Lahm told reporters.
Once Hummels scored, Germany sat back and took the air out of the ball. The French only mustered two legitimate chances, including one in the fourth and final minute of added time, when Karim Benzema stormed in from the left and launched a rocket that was deflected out by Minuel Neuer’s right hand.
For the French, at least, this was a more dignified exit than the disaster of 2010, when much of the veteran team — including Thierry Henry — mutinied against coach Raymond Domenech and refused at one point to disembark from the team bus. After that disaster, Domenech wrote in his diary, “I’m out of here. I couldn’t give a damn about this bunch of imbeciles.”
The French then rebuilt the national team around coach Didier Deschamps, who has a much younger side that played adventurously early in this tournament and with exceptional attacking ability — until it met solid, staid Germany.
France will host the European Championships in 2016 and the hope is that this side will mature in time to compete for the title.
At hot, humid Estadio Maracana before 75,000 fans, however, the French became just another stalk of grain for the German threshing machine.
