After their dramatic victory over Argentina brought Germany their
fourth World Cup win, Joachim Löw and his national team’s joy knew no
bounds. DFB.de recorded the mood after Die Mannschaft’s triumph in Rio de Janeiro.
Joachim Löw (national coach): We’ve been together for 55 days
but we started this whole project ten years ago. Our great strength is
that we’ve been able to continually improve over that time. If anyone
has earned this victory then it’s this team. Today there was only one
deserving winner, and that’s this team. They’ve developed incredible
team spirit and unbelievable willpower over the past few weeks. This
deep feeling of happiness will remain with us all forever. It makes us
all proud.
Oliver Bierhoff (national team manager): It’s incredible. I
could feel it from the very first day in South Tyrol: something special
is happening here. The best team have become world champions.
Mario Götze: It’s a great feeling. The team really earned
this. There were one or two players who said before the game: "You’re
going to do this today."
Philipp Lahm: What we’ve achieved again today is unbelievable;
we worked extremely hard for 120 minutes. It doesn’t matter whether you
have the best individual players – you’ve got to have the best team.
We’ve continually improved during this tournament, haven’t allowed
ourselves to be distracted in any way and stuck to our plan. And now
here we are – world champions. What an unbelievable feeling. The team
stayed calm and patient because they knew we had so much quality.
Manuel Neuer: It’s unbelievable. It’s an amazing experience.
We’ve all worked incredibly well together since the training camp, when
we suffered a couple of setbacks and lost players like the Bender
brothers and Marco Reus – but those players are world champions too. The
whole of Germany are world champions. I don’t know how long we’ll be
celebrating for but we’ll have permanent smiles on our faces from now
on.
Miroslav Klose: It’s amazing. This tops everything. We came
second once, third another time… it’s just brilliant, and I can’t quite
take it in yet. It was always a dream to be up there lifting the trophy
once and not to always look up and applaud other teams. The team’s
performance was important; we wanted to stay calm because we knew we had
more quality. Before Mario replaced me, I said to him: “You’re going to
do it for us.” I don’t yet know whether I’ll carry on in the national
side; I’ll give it a couple of nights sleep and then make the right
decision.
Bastian Schweinsteiger: We’re enjoying this moment, it’s
incredible. Thanks to all of Germany for the support. Out here we could
feel everyone standing behind us. Today we’re celebrating everything,
we’re going for it. It’s an unbelievable achievement, but I’ve never
experienced anything like the way the lads on the bench got involved. It
gave us such a boost, and it’s only with their help that we have
managed to win this trophy.
Lukas Podolski: Out on the pitch I said that it was only ten
years ago that we came from the U-21 team to the senior side, and now
we’re here with the World Cup trophy in our hands. It’s just fantastic.
Thank you to everybody, the fans – we make a super team. Hello to
everyone in Cologne – celebrate in style tonight!
André Schürrle: I can’t take it in at all yet. I had no idea
what to do when the ref blew the final whistle. Tears just flowed as all
the emotions hit me. We’re unbelievably happy. Before the goal I was
just trying to cross the ball into the box with whatever energy I had
left and Mario made a wonderful move. I don’t yet know what tonight
holds, but we won’t be getting any sleep and we’ll make the most of it.
Jérôme Boateng: Everyone pushed themselves to the very limit.
We all dug incredibly deep. Argentina defended well but got tired during
extra time, and we had more wind left in our sails. I always believed
we could win. Now we’ll celebrate until we can’t celebrate any more.
Everyone can dance around on my shoulders tonight!
Mats Hummels: I’m still completely on another planet and too
physically exhausted to be able to feel completely euphoric about what
we’ve done. I’m sure that’ll happen over the next few days though. You
can only become world champions if you act like world champions. We
wanted to make that clear the whole time, and we managed it even though
we had a little luck in the final, as we were already preparing for the
penalty shootout in our minds.
Christoph Kramer: I can’t remember very much of it, but that
doesn’t matter now. I’ve got to say hello to my grandma – it’s her
birthday and I didn’t manage to speak to her today.
Alejandro Sabella (Argentina coach): It was a very finely
balanced match. We had some very good chances but we weren’t effective
enough. Germany had another day’s rest. I’d like to congratulate my
players. They’ve played fantastically at this World Cup, and I’m proud
of them. They gave their all in Argentina’s colours. Of course we’re all
extremely disappointed, but we can still look at ourselves in the
mirror and feel proud. Congratulations to Germany.
Source : dfb.de