There was no sense of schadenfreude among the victorious German team in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday night, no particular pleasure in the pain they had just inflicted on 200 million Brazilians or the shockwaves sent around the world.
In a way that made it all the more frightening. If ever a moment had summed up one nation’s reputation for ruthless efficiency, here it was in all its brilliant brutality.
Brazil’s real misfortune was not losing their talisman Neymar or leader Thiago Silva, but coming up against a team who would take advantage like no other.

It isn’t the first time. England’s hopes of winning Euro ’96 on home soil were wrecked by the Germans (on penalties, of course), who went on to win a third European Championship triumph to go with three World Cups. Now, as another one beckons, it prompts the question: what makes the Germans so good at football?

IRON WILL
It is no coincidence that Germany hit top form at tournaments. This was their fourth straight appearance in the World Cup semi-finals, and 13th in the last 20 attempts. That doesn’t happen by chance.
There is something in the German psyche that convinces the players they have the strength to succeed, as well as an ideal temperament for tournament football.Hamann believes there is a humility to German players that sets them apart from many others. It is rare that you hear of German stars getting into trouble or flaunting their wealth.
‘Humility is a big thing,’ he said. ‘You have to conduct yourself in the right way because you have a responsibility to your team and that has gone out of the window in some countries. They’re taught never to give up and to always try to do the right thing. Even when they were 5-0 up against Brazil, you never saw anything flash. They were the same as at 0-0. Team is the key. They are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the group and are very humble.’
Nothing sums up German ruthlessness quite like a penalty shootout, as England have found to their cost. The documentary Germany – A Summer Fairy Tale, filmed behind the scenes at the 2006 World Cup, showed their players practising penalties in training and having to specify which part of the goal they were aiming for before shooting. There was no changing of minds.
‘If you compare the recordings with the penalty shootout in the quarter-final against Argentina, you can see that they shot exactly as they did before,’ said Werner Mickler, one of Germany’s top sports psychologists. ‘You need a program to stay free from all interference in critical situations.’

GOLDEN BOYS
German football was plunged into a period of soul-searching after their team’s dismal performance at Euro 2000, when the reigning champions went out at the group stage with just one point and a solitary goal. The following year saw a blueprint for the compulsory introduction of youth academies at all 36 professional clubs. A 10-year anniversary study revealed that more than half the players in the Bundesliga had come through the academy system, producing such talents as Thomas Muller, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philipp Lahm, Mario Gotze and Manuel Neuer. They have all chosen to stay in their homeland rather than seek more money abroad.
A new generation of German footballers has been born, one that has seen Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund surge to the forefront of European football as well as Germany’s continued success on the international stage. Compare that to the Premier League where young English talent is continually thwarted by foreign imports.
‘Our key players in the Bundesliga were either old or foreign so we knew change had to happen or there was no future,’ said Dufner.
‘We set about developing a new generation. We have boys from the age of five up to the age of 19 in the schools. They are educated as in a normal school but it runs alongside our football philosophy.
‘It is about good concentration, learning the right techniques, taking care of their bodies and training well — learning the dedication of a professional athlete.’

CULTURE CLUB
When a Polish-born player is firing Germany to the World Cup final and becoming the leading scorer in the tournament’s history, you know that Miroslav Klose’s adopted homeland has learned to embrace multi-culturalism.
As good as Germany’s new generation undoubtedly is, they have also benefited from the talents of players of foreign descent like Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira.
‘They’ve been very important,’ said Hamann. ‘They don’t have a German background but they grew up in Germany and think like Germans now. They bring something different to the team.’

Mesut Ozil was born into the wrong generation of footballers. It’s plain to see when he comes across the media. He lives and works in an era which demands his every move be observed, and yet Ozil prefers to slink off into the shadows. Time and again, he darts past reporters, casting only a grateful glance at whichever team-mate is diverting the hounds away.
His behaviour is no different on the football pitch. Players like Ozil should, we believe, sparkle at every moment. They should make us gasp. We should marvel at their sub-human capacities to move a football. They should, as Nike tells us without a trace of self-awareness, risk everything.

Ozil, petulant as he is, bluntly refuses to meet those requirements. He makes no mazy runs. He attempts no 40 yard bicycle kicks. Instead, he moves imperceptibly around the football pitch, often barely touching the ball, slinking into the shadows.

It drives the football world crazy. Arsenal fans are at a loss to why they spent such astronomical sums on such a player. Paul Breitner believes that Ozil should be dropped from Germany’s starting line-up. The nation’s skiing sensation Felix Neureuther insists that Ozil “drives me crazy with his lack of bite”.
Bite. Energy. Pace. Those are the virtues we idolise in the modern day. Ozil utilises few of them. His game is, and has always been, about selflessness. He creates space, often drawing several defenders out of position. He finds the most astonishing through balls. He enables the great superstars.

The greatest superstar of all, Cristiano Ronaldo, knew this. He adored working with Ozil at Real Madrid and affectionately named him “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. It was a strikingly poetic moment from the Portuguese, and a rather accurate one at that. Ozil is a magician, insofar as he makes things happen without the spectator noticing he has done so. He is the apprentice, in that he hands the limelight to his more extravagant contemporaries.
He is not always magical, of course. Much of the time, he is as ineffectual as Neureuther claims. In his first season at Arsenal, he has shown only the occasional glimpse of his genius, and at the World Cup he has only been slightly better.

But then for the last few years, Ozil has, by chance as well as by misjudged design, been leading a life unsuited to him. His price tag at Arsenal pushed him into the role of Sorcerer, rather than apprentice. That didn't suit him. The cult of his identity in advertising and social media was something that his advisors – not least his father – appear to have cultivated far beyond the levels which suit a man like Mesut Ozil. He has, both on the pitch and off it, been dragged forcefully out of the shadows and paraded stark naked through the marble streets of modern football.

That is not good for a man like Mesut Özil, and his psychology and consistency have suffered as a result. But his genius remains. In this World Cup, he has played far better than his verbal execution by mob rule would indicate. His passing has been statistically better than that of all his team mates, while his quiet ability to create space from the lack of it has enabled Germany to break through almost entirely defensive opposition.

Mesut Ozil may not be in the form of his life. Let your eye drift over him as you watch a game, and you will certainly reach the same conclusion as Paul Breitner: that he merely wanders around ineffectually.

But, if you have nothing better to do this evening, watch Ozil closely. For ninety minutes. I bet you his 50 million Euro price tag that you will see him doing things you never thought he did. Affecting the game in a way you otherwise would have missed. Quietly. In the shadows.