So it transpires that Germany, custodians of tournament composure, are not partial to group-stage melodramas after all. On a clear, mild evening in Lviv—a landscape of subdued, low-slung sprawl—Joachim Löw’s side navigated their final Group B hurdle with just enough disquiet to remind us that even thoroughbreds can stumble. Their 2-1 victory over Denmark, secured only by Lars Bender’s late intervention, was more intricate than the scoreline might suggest. Yet by the end, Germany emerged from the so-called “Group of Death” with the kind of stately assurance that makes crises elsewhere seem almost theatrical. Awaiting them is Greece—who, in both footballing and more literal senses, might feel they owe Germany a reckoning.
This was a conclusion worthy of a group that, from the
moment it was drawn in Kiev, had been cast in funereal tones—only to flicker
with vibrant unpredictability. As the final matches began, each nation’s fate
still dangled on an unsteady wire. Germany’s passage was expected, but it was
not without unease.
Löw, ever the meticulous orchestrator, wore the taut
expression of a man whose quest for seamless geometry on the field is rarely
satisfied. “It was a very difficult match,” he conceded, a note of mild rebuke
curling in his voice. “In the first half we had three or four chances to make
it all clear. We might have killed the situation. In midfield and defence we
had too many spaces and Denmark took the tempo out of the game. Greece will try
to do the same.” For Löw, football is a matter of orchestrating angles and
compressing space; to see his team drift into lax intervals must have grated.
Still, Germany settled first amid the agreeable din of
35,000 spectators, immediately demonstrating the interplay of pace, balance,
and physical grace that is this squad’s signature. Within two minutes, Thomas
Müller had already skimmed the crossbar after a sharp foray fashioned by Lukas
Podolski from the left. The Podolski-Philipp Lahm partnership down that flank
looked almost offhand in its menace.
Denmark, by contrast, were consigned to scraps, mustering
only a solitary, scuffed effort from Nicklas Bendtner before Germany did what
they invariably do: struck with cold efficiency. On 19 minutes, Müller skipped
in from the right and drilled a cross toward Mario Gomez, whose awkward touch transformed
into an inadvertent assist. The ball fell obligingly for Podolski, who slammed
it home from close range—his 44th goal for Germany, appropriately on his 100th
appearance.
Yet these Danes are nothing if not resilient. Only four
minutes later, from a deep corner rehearsed with mathematical precision,
Bendtner rose to head back across goal, and Michael Krohn-Dehli ghosted in to
nod past Manuel Neuer. Suddenly the match—and by extension, the group—teetered
on a precarious edge. With results as they stood, Denmark were poised to join
Germany in the quarter-finals.
Echoes of old conspiracies inevitably stirred. Whispers of
another Shame of Gijón—when West Germany and Austria engineered a mutually
convenient 1-0 to eliminate Algeria in 1982—had rippled before kick-off. A draw
here could serve both parties. Might we see the game laid down, flattened into
collusion by quiet agreement?
It never quite approached that. Germany continued to hunt,
Mesut Özil’s curling free-kick grazing Gomez’s brow from three yards out. Just
before the break, Gomez himself—whose poise borders on eccentric
nonchalance—ambled through two defenders only to be thwarted by Andersen. For
all his clockwork precision in front of goal, there is something whimsically
offbeat about him.
Denmark, however, were not merely bystanders. Bendtner
dominated aerial duels, exposing a susceptibility in Germany’s backline that
felt out of character. Early in the second half, with the other group game
locked at 1-1, every scenario remained combustible. Denmark almost shattered
the equilibrium outright on 51 minutes when Jakob Poulsen, played in by
Bendtner, grazed the outside of Neuer’s post.
Sensing danger, Germany revealed another, more patient
facet. They slowed the tempo to a creeping cadence, hoarding possession,
draining both time and Danish vitality. Denmark still had a final, startling
moment: on 75 minutes, Bendtner was unmistakably tugged back by Holger
Badstuber in the box. A penalty seemed obligatory. None was given. Fortune’s
scales tipped irrevocably.
Four minutes later, Germany administered the coup de grâce. Özil, cerebral and feline, unspooled a diagonal pass that dissected the Danish lines. There was Bender—nominally a right-back but roaming with striker’s instincts—to finish with unsparing calm.
Elsewhere, Portugal’s concurrent triumph over Holland
ensured it would be they, not Denmark, advancing to meet the Czech Republic.
Germany, under this calculated, if imperfect, conquest, will confront
Greece a day later.
For Löw, the imperfections will be cause for nights of schematic rearrangement and tactical neurosis. But for all the stray threads in their tapestry, Germany continue forward with a familiar, quietly terrifying momentum—proof that even in their moments of unease, they rarely court catastrophe. For their rivals, that remains the most unsettling certainty of all.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
