2014 FIFA World Cup

With the World Cup now completed, I think that one of the best things about the fact that Germany won the tournament is that it symbolises a victory of team over individual player, which doesn't mean that Argentina are bad (they aren't), but that the actual 'team', rather than the team built around an individual, won.
 

Some "evidence" as follows (mostly inspired by user comments to an article on The Guardian's sport section):

Before the tournament questions like the following were raised:


‘Can Neymar lead Brazil to glory?’ (IMO he certainly was Brazil’s best player by far and its undisputed leader at age 22, but even if he had not been injured I doubt he would have made a big difference in the semifinal)


'Can Messi cement his status as a legend?' (he probably is no more or less legend than he was before the tournament)


'Will Robben be able to make the difference for Holland?' (much more than I would have expected)


'Will CR7 be able to make the difference for Portugal?' (NO, and I think that is because he is no team player and way too self-centered which is why he can only flourish in games like the qualifier playoff against Sweden when the setup was “CR7 vs IBRA” (BOTH with relatively mediocre supporting casts which didn't disrupt their "leader's" showdown) or when he gets help from fellow superstars like he does at Real, where of course he also helps his fellow superstars by scoring a ton of goals others never would make, but I think he could be much more valuable to his teams if he could somehow get rid of his selfishness, best demonstrated by his exultation after scoring the 4:1 in the the waning seconds of the UCL final, probably the most meaningless goal EVER scored, but this way he achieved his main goal which was to get on the front pages of the tabloids where Bale or Ramos would have belonged after the game).


The theme of those "questions" was not only to be found in the media coverage, but also in advertising like the 'Risk Everything' campaign by Nike. Literally a collection of individuals trying to rescue the game from robots...

Clearly football history is also heavily influenced by great individual players, but you get the point.


Some ‘teams’ even seemed to play with the approach "give it to Messi/Neymar/Suarez" and so on (England’s tactic obviously was "give it to Suarez" even when he was on the opposing side).
For Germany it seemed to be "Give it to anyone, and then run into space" (Goetze, who scored the winner in the final, didn’t even play against Brazil..).


In that sense it's good to see that Germany's team effort prevailed. Obviously they have leaders in their team, but no superstars that always try to catch all the attention like players on other teams.

German team is on its way to TXL with the B748 "Siegerflieger" (pic attached) ...

A last "foul" in Brazil vs. the German team, as the "Siegerflieger" from "Fanhansa" was hit by a luggage truck leading to a 2 hour delay of flight LH2014 with D-ABYI.

It will land in TXL, as the the delay of opening BER airport is measured in years, not hours.

Was the luggage truck driver from Argentina?

Here a better pic of the 'Siegerflieger'