At first glance it looked so simple. Almost a toe-poke, in fact. And then, around the stadium, those in celebration and despair searched for the replay. There it was, in all its glory. A goal to grace a World Cup final, a goal that was so much more than the sum of its parts.
The team versus the superstar, that was the narrative. On one side the Die National Mannschaft, on the other Lionel Messi. Yet football has a way of confounding such expectation. Mario Gotze scored a team goal, true, but with a level of technique that would have won Messi the Golden Ball had it come from his foot.
With eight minutes of extra time remaining, Andre Schurrle sprinted down the left. He finally outwitted an exhausted Argentine defence, finding Gotze in space. He took it on his chest, finished it left foot on the volley past Sergio Romero. And the World Cup was done.
No comments:
Post a Comment