Lionel Messi's night of hard labour at the Maracana World Cup final ends in only misery

 A country hoped this was the night when their talisman would join Diego Maradona in the game's pantheon, but Joachim Low's team had very different ideas 

 Germany’s envied culture of planning, skill and intelligence gained its reward on the sacred turf of the Maracana. Lionel Messi watched the dream of international greatness recede in a stadium that Argentina tried to claim as a satellite of Buenos Aires.

Between those two bookends, one of the best World Cups ended with boos for the presidents of Fifa and Brazil, the locals awash with schadenfreude, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Germany’s best player, limping and drained, the flinty Javier Mascherano weeping and Messi stepping up to receive the Golden Ball for the tournament’s best player: a bizarre choice, which even he will be embarrassed about, given the way this game unfolded.

Mario Gotze scores only goal as Germany beat Argentina at the Maracana

 Germany deservedly lifted the World Cup because of a moment of brilliance from Mario Götze – Mario de Janeiro – because of the team’s resilience and intelligence, because of the tackling of the outstanding Jérôme Boateng and because Bastian Schweinsteiger kept going even when battered by Argentine tackles, even when bruised, even when bloodied as his cheek was opened up.

Germany also prevailed because of the hard work put in by the Deutsche Fussball-Bund since 2004 in transforming its youth-development structure, in calmly preparing inexorably for nights like this. It built football centres for kids, built up a reservoir of talent which saw Götze come off the bench, and built towards a fourth World Cup. A stellar team now has a fourth star to go on that famous white shirt.

Germans certain their team will beat Argentina

Life is a challenge these days in Germany if you are not a football fan.

 You simply cannot avoid it. The media is awash with interest in Sunday's World Cup final, with the 'Nationalelf' (national 11) involved against old rivals Argentina.

The stunning 7-1 semi-final win over hosts Brazil resulted in football euphoria only seen before in the country when West Germany won previous World Cup tournaments in 1954, 1974 and 1990.
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Germany's Thomas Muller and Andre Schurrle celebrate against Brazil

"Three days to go", "two days to go", "one day to go" - these have been the headlines from Germany's biggest selling tabloid Bild. It's the countdown to the final or the 'finaaaaale o-ho' as German fans always sing when their team reaches this biggest of big games.

Lionel Messi faces day of destiny for Argentina vs Germany

World's best player would merit a place alongside Diego Maradona and Pele in the game's trinity of immortals if he can lead his side to victory in the Maracana 

Lionel Messi is fighting history as well as trying to make it. World Cup finals have become desperately tight affairs: the last six, stretching from Italia ’90 to South Africa 2010, have produced only nine goals whereas the previous six, dating from Wembley ’66 to the Azteca in ’86, wallowed in 27 goals. Defences have become parsimonious. If Messi helps Argentina to become world champions, the 27-year-old rightly deserves to be hailed alongside Pele and Diego Maradona as the three greats of the game.

Brazil's worst nightmare defeat to Germany in World Cup History

 If you saw the game on television, no, you didn't imagine it. If you didn't watch it but heard about it, the rumors are true.

Brazil really did concede five goals in the first half hour of its World Cup semifinal against Germany. It really did get dumped out of the tournament 7-1. The dream really did end in little more than a heartbeat because of a devastating burst of brilliant attacking and utterly inept defending to form the most extraordinary outcome of all.

The World Cup is magical, the sort of thing that everyone should sample at least once in their lifetime. But not like this. Unless you are a diehard Germany fan you were lucky not to be here at the Estadio Mineirao as perhaps the proudest soccer nation of all was humiliated and had its heart shredded.