Germany Proves It's Good to Be the King

Whoa. The ghost of Sepp Blatter lives on.

It's a given in any sport that to be the champ, you've gotta beat the champ.

As being the champ has its privileges, this can take some doing. A hella lotta doing.

The Swedes are still in disbelief that FIFA installed a video replay system -- the Virtual Assistant Referee -- and in an obvious review situation didn't see it used.

What's Germany gotta do to get called into account? Shoot someone at the Brandenburg Gate?

 

This match was High Noon for the reigning World Cup champions. What with their shock loss to Mexico, die Mannschaft couldn't afford to lose another group match.

But what it took for that to happen!

• The referee ignoring an obvious penalty and refusing to bring VAR into the decision,
• Sweden doggedly refusing to change tactics after Germany was reduced to 10 men, and
• Another six minutes of injury time that even exceeded the tourney trend of 4 to 5.

 

Whatever it is, the bottom line is Germany beat Sweden, 2-1, thanks to Toni Kroos' moment of magic at 4:42 of injury time. However, both sides remain alive in Group F, where Mexico holds top spot but has yet to secure a place in the bracket.

Team strategies were evident right from the kickoff:

• Die Mannschaft was determined to carry the action relentlessly, because their dire situation demanded it, and
• The Blågult would wait to launch the inevitable counter opportunities resulting from Germany's tactics.

Joachim Löw's crew got caught out early in the proceedings, when a careless pass from Jérôme Boateng -- beginning what would be a horrorshow game for him -- was picked off and turned into a fateful Swedish break:

 

OK, no penalty was called, but how was this play not deferred to the VAR? Wasn't that the sorta situation that justified its presence in the first place?

Boateng was over so much of Marcus Berg that he could almost be defined as a piece of clothing.

 

The Germans accused Sweden of negative play, but it was bearing fruit.

While die Mannschaft were launching full attacks in waves -- and wasting countless chances with Marco Reus and Timo Werner -- the Swedens punished Germany yet again.

After an amazing counterattack, Ola Toivonen found himself face-to-face with Manuel Neuer and brilliantly beat him with football's version of a high-loft pitching wedge:

 

Whatever Löw imparted to his troops in the dressing room at intermission had the desired effect.

Three minutes into the second half, Reus equalized on a precision cross from Werner:

 

After that, Germany turned it up to 11, still leaving the defenders to clean up any sins.

That gamble failed again in the 82nd minute, when Boateng was sent off.

 

Go figure.

That foul deserved a yellow, and yet it was much less egregious than Boateng's mugging of Berg in the box.

 

The Swedish goalkeeper, Robin Olsen, the potential man of the match, had some excellent saves, including this brilliant effort on a Mario Gómez header in the 90th minute:

After that, what the hell.

The referee clearly had no dinner plans for the night, so he tacked on enough injury time to make it seem like a Bruce Springsteen concert encore.

Crucially, it was just enough time for Kroos to revise history with a stunning free kick from the left-wing, straight into Olsen's right top corner:

The only people more stoic than the Germans are the Scandinavians, but that characteristic was cast to the wind in the aftermath.

A German assistants taunted the Swedish bench, and the matter accelerated from there:

Confrontations continued, enough to get a feeling that this is far from over.

It may not be.

The Swedes would have to defeat Mexico to hope for a bracket rematch, but El Tri knows a thing or two about emotions, too.

Stay tuned.