Three months ago Argentina coach Diego Maradona approached a postgame interview podium, eyed this young German already sitting there and immediately dismissed 20-year-old Thomas Mueller as a ball boy. He then refused to share an interview stage with him.
Earlier this week, Maradona responded to criticism of his team’s style of play from Germany’s rising star Bastian Schweinsteiger by peering into a camera and in a mock German accent issuing a famed Argentinean political taunt: “What’s the matter Schweinsteiger? Are you nerrrvoushhh?”
So there was the “nervous” German delivering a crossing free kick in the third minute of Saturday’s quarterfinals game between the two rivals. And there was the “ball boy” heading it home to start what would be Germany’s 4-0 gutting of Argentina. Later, Schweinsteiger again looked rather calm and collected as he deftly dribbled through the confused Argentina defense to set up an embarrassingly easy third goal.
Schweinsteiger would be named man of the match. Mueller would leave to rousing cheers.
And Diego Maradona, he of the mouth that never stops yapping, was left alone, mumbling in misery as he paced in front of the bench during the final minutes of this historic beat down.
This was annihilation. This was humiliation. And this was an epic reversal of fortunes – these two young Germans doing the impossible: turning Diego Maradona completely upside down.
“This is the most disappointing moment in my life,” Maradona said in a humbled press conference. “This is really like a kick in the face. I have no more energy for anything.”
Like a punctured soccer ball, all the air, all the life had been sucked out of the flashy, sassy Argentines. Their star, Lionel Messi, was a mess, reduced to an apologetic, crying postgame dressing room lump, bounced from the tournament without registering a goal.
The nation’s confident fans – bolstered when rival Brazil was upset Friday – had come out by the thousands only to shuffle from the stadium in silence with German victory songs ringing in their ears.
And, mostly, there was Maradona, who had made every move with supreme confidence and unapologetic flair. Mueller and Schweinsteiger were nothing special – the guy gets into fights with everyone, starting with Pele and working his way down. It’s part of his charm. It defines his daring ways.
In these young German stars of this young German team, though, Maradona found his match. They were willing to talk back at him. Mueller, who now has four goals in this World Cup, noted that things had changed from the teams’ March friendly, which Argentina won 1-0. This week, he said he wasn’t afraid of a postgame fight (a la the 2006 World Cup quarterfinal between these two teams) as long as Germany won.
The 25-year-old Schweinsteiger, meanwhile, boldly engaged the Argentine coach, continuing to fill the role of leader on a youthful team whose captain, Michael Ballack, had to miss the World Cup with an ankle injury.
“I love to take on the strongest, to be honest with you,” Schweinsteiger said in admitting he preferred to play Spain in Wednesday’s semifinal but saying so much more. It was, of course, a Maradona kind of line, one that that might fire up Paraguay should it, and not Spain, advance.
“They are fearless,” German coach Joachim Loew said of his team’s many young players. “Not disrespectful, but fearless.”
And that was the other part. It’s one thing to take on Maradona in a talk-fest. It’s another to storm his team on the pitch. The game changed forever in that second minute, when Mr.-Are-You-Nervous passed to the Ball Boy who headed it in to give Germany a 1-0 lead. From there the Germans sat back, double-teamed Messi and made dangerous counter attacks.
“We knew they were very dangerous on set pieces,” Maradona said shaking his head. “The first set piece they had … I don’t know. … We gave Germany lots of good ideas. … They had lots of ideas. Ideas they didn’t have before.”
The Germans weren’t much for gloating. Their coach, Loew, said they tend to leave their excitement in the dressing room, what with the stakes so high. But it’s human nature for them to watch the hunched figure of Diego Maradona explain the pain they had just inflicted on him.
Germany's Bastian Schweinsteiger responded to Maradona's taunts by earning the man of the match honor.
(Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“Just complete sad[ness],” he said. “The day I stopped playing football was similar. This sadness is very strong. It’s tough. It’s tough because … we all had this goal, this dream. And we were just thinking of winning over Germany and the opposite happened.
“I lived through this in [the 1982 World Cup] as a player. But I was a boy and I didn’t really realize the importance of things today. Today, I am 50 years old in October, and I am mature.”
Down the hall the Germans, so many still what Maradona would call “boys,” were still reliving Schweinsteiger’s impossible slalom run through the Argentinean defense before passing to Arne Friedrich for an easy knock in.
“The way he set up Friedrich to score a goal was absolute second to none,” Loew said. “You couldn’t play any better. He went through three, four, five players then pretends to play a pass and then passes it back.
“He was fabulous,” Loew added. “He was basically the lynch pin in every attack we had.”
There was nothing to it, Schweinsteiger smiled. It was a team effort he said. “I can only be good if the team is good,” he noted.
Oh, the team is good, eviscerating world powers England and Argentina in two knockout round games by a combined score of 8-1, pushing to the cusp of unexpected history and, of course, sucking the life out of an old soccer icon along the way.
From the ball boy on up, no one’s nervous in Germany. Delivering an emphatic comeuppance tends to foster the precise opposite emotion.
