Germany's win: press round-up

It was definitely a challenge for columnists up and down the land: how to describe one of the most outlandish victories in Germany's World Cup history. At least they had plenty of time to do it, since Jogi Löw's men kindly put the rout beyond doubt before a third of the game was done.

Still, Germany's leading tabloid Bild couldn't handle it. Apparently defeated by the enormity of the result, its front page on Wednesday morning featured only the scoreline, a photo of midfielder Toni Kroos leaping onto his team-mate Sami Khedira in celebration, and the anti-headline "No words!"

What to say?

If that was a startling capitulation for a top mass-circulation publication so famed for its word-play, the lesser known Bergische Morgenpost fared little better, managing only a sentimental "Thank You" for its front-page headline, again along with an image of a jubilant Kroos, this time embracing goal-machine Thomas Müller.

Kroos was picked by many pundits, including FIFA's, as the man of the match. The consensus was that the Bayern Munich player's passing accuracy, his near-perfect crosses (delivering the corner that gave Müller the opening goal), not to mention his sweet outside-of-the-boot strike that slammed in the third made him Germany's best all-round player. The usually sober Süddeutsche Zeitung gushed that he was like "Xavi and Iniesta in one."

The Westdeutsche Zeitung, on the other hand, preferred to give the coach the bulk of the credit. Löw, it said, had grown immeasurably following past tournaments. "Since his appointment in 2006, Löw has initiated much, learned a lot on top of that, and at this World Cup he was finally ready, and just in time, to let go of his dogmas," it wrote. "No stubbornness, no wavering. Always analytical, but always looking boldly forward. With captain Lahm he stabilized the defense just in time, re-establishing the old 4-2-3-1 system as of the quarterfinal - so minimized risks."

Waxing cerebral

The Berliner Zeitung, meanwhile, preferred to analyze the pain that Germany had inflicted on Brazil, channelling Sigmund Freud: "Pity, shame, humiliation, indecency," the paper's leader said of the feelings that yesterday's game awoke. "And more than the sudden flash of playing-culture of the Germans, and the tactical failure of the Brazilians, the talk was of the psychological pressure they failed to withstand… With all eyes watching, this was the collapse of a psychosocial system that had expected nothing less than the unfulfillable delight of a whole nation."

If that seemed a little highfalutin, it had nothing on the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, who drafted in even deeper German thinkers to explain the unexplainable spectacle that unfolded the night before.

"Perhaps this 7-1 only reflects what Frankfurt philosopher Martin Seel called the 'celebration of impotency.' … You can train as hard as you can, but the final fulfillment of a sporting action usually comes about at random," it said. "The fact that the German players almost entirely resisted gestures of triumph is an indication of their well-developed consciousness of the moment of successful completion." In other words, we think this commentator is saying, Germany ain't won nothing yet.