Of course, there are also every now and then in sports, these historical moments when the moon landed or when the Berlin Wall came down, and the question always follows: Where were you when …?
The question in sports is usually a more specific one: Which television set did you sit on than …? For example, 2014: If you weren’t in Rio, you were still watching. He was at the public viewing or chewed fingernails in front of the telly.
This World Cup final was a real fingernail chewing game. One that dragged on, and the longer it dragged, the more gripping it became. A duel that contradicted the thesis that a good football game requires a lot of goals. It was 0-0 in extra time – the duel had “Suspense”. So the escalating tension that is needed for a good crime thriller. Sometimes a brutal foul, sometimes a stapled wound, nothing really wanted to happen, but every second it pushed the viewer deeper into the armchair, because it was clear that something had to come. Gates were missing, but a crime thriller doesn’t get better by constantly getting new bodies.
113.Minute: Schürrle sprints off
Was the semifinals the better game in 2014? Just because there were eight gates to be admired? The question of where-were-you-as-…? Will probably be asked even more often in generations about the 7-1 of the Germans against Brazil in Belo Horizonte. Because this 7: 1 was so incredible. The result and the overall impression are remembered: the pitiful humiliation of the record world champion, left by all good spirits. But a striking scene? There were too many, the flood of images was inflationary.
In contrast, the goose bumps finale against Lionel Messi and colleagues came to a head at the moment. If you watch the winning goal in the video today, you will notice that Mario Götze did not have the biggest part in it. He accomplished brilliantly, took the ball with his chest, and nudged it into the net with a smooth twist that only a few can. However, the scene was initiated long before: by André Schürrle, who now, this weekend, made public that he was weakened from the football industry at the age of 29. But this scene, this is his personal one, his eternal where-were-you-when-Mario-Götze-met- …? Moment.
113.Minute: Schürrle sprints off, just behind the center line, seven or eight contacts, one look, then this precise flank of the bow, which flies into the penalty area from far outside – and which finds its grateful interpreter in the former Supermario. That player, which is also part of the excitement of the night, which national coach Löw had recently sent into a private duel with a pathos-pregnant command: “Show the world that you are better than Messi!” This evidence was provided in Rio de Janeiro, but not forever.
Schürrle, who designed the foreplay, and Götze, who finalized – the German World Cup duo 2014 did not make a great career later. But what counts is the short moment: Flank Schürrle, Tor Götze! That remains forever, like Helmut Rahn’s long-range shot from 1954, Gerd Müller’s 1974 spin and Andreas Brehme’s 1990 penalty.
Short question: Who scored the German goals in a 7-1 win against Brazil in 2014?
.
