A picture perfect night for Germany

I highly doubt there are evenings of football better than Wednesday night, because it was great and perfect. Not necessarily the game, as played on the field, mind you, as was the national coach Joachim Löw and his players relieved than happy. But almost everything was storybook stuff.
It began even before the first ball was launched when the news of the unexpected turn Holger Badstuber replaced by Jerome Boateng is. It was a gamble that had Boateng has never played for Germany, but I was with the decision still happy.

As I had written about the possibility of two brothers facing each other at the World Cup more than six months (see "sideline and Bloodlines). But this scenario just more and more unlikely that a low bench Jerome Boateng continuously in recent weeks. But the coaches his last opinion, in the right time and inadvertently contributed to the history of football. Perfect.

Then, combining the results of Johannesburg and Nelspruit has meant that Germany Ghana. And it was a picture-book solution. Not only because the "Black Stars" played well against the team of small, especially tactical and probably not worth losing. And not just because it's good to finally an African team in the next round, either. No, it's also because we have a special relationship with Ghana football.

I said Jerome Boateng, who - oddly enough - is the second German born international a Ghanaian father (Gerald Asamoah was the first one). Jerome half brother Kevin-Prince on his side, he plays for the Black Stars World Cup - after Germany, present at all levels of the youth.

Both Boateng was born. And the same goes for the man who currently control the national team of Ghana Anthony Baffoe, who grew up in Bonn. Baffoe Yabo Reinhold Vetter, also plays for Germany Under-17 side.

This brings me to another interesting connection between Ghana and Germany - the name. Reinhold Yabo Ethnicity is carefully African (his father is Ghanaian, his mother from the Congo), but if his first name is also the German Asamoah can get.

The same applies to the well-known players such as former Ghana International Otto Addo and Godfrey (an obsolete spelling of Gottfried) Aduobe or current Black Star Hans Sarpei.

Sure, there are the players in the African countries except Ghana, the German name (Wilfried Sanou, Manfred Kizito and Rolf-Christel Guie-Mien come to mind) are. But it is undeniable that relations between Ghana and Germany, soccer and others are always exceptionally good. Heck, no less than six Germans led the Black Stars in the past, one of them twice.

Felt like somehow very, very right for the German and Ghanaian players celebrate Wednesday night. get Jerome Boateng, tattooed by the shape of the African continent on his left arm, said: "I am relieved that this game is now behind me and I am glad, Ghana are also in the next round." Perfect.

However, Boateng, the main actors in the drama are on Wednesday. In part because the game was extremely clean and the referee was much better than people feared. Who was also perfect. From a German perspective, the central role of the protagonist fell to a thin and fragile, technically gifted midfielder. He was the biggest scapegoat in the history of football in his country, when he a goalkeeper in the first half, which could lead to Germany, was did not miss the knockout round for the first time.

Instead, he was the savior of his country of football with a nice shot in the second half, young girls in grote Schermen in Germany promotes its name to shout and scream. One of them told a television interviewer later enthusiastically: "Mesut is the best! Mesut won for us!"

I said that "football history of his country" and "savior of his country of football"? Yes, I have. Since this country is Mesut Özil. Here he was born and raised. And it was oh so perfectly that a strike team that will certainly be described as "typically German" and laden with clichés before the race Sunday in the second round - but especially a new Germany, colorful, sent diverse, more eclectically as in the past.

Serdar Tasci and Mesut Özil Both were born in Germany of Turkish parents. Miroslav Klose, Lukas Podolski and Piotr Trochowski was born in Poland to Polish parents, came to Germany as children (eight, five and two years). Marko Marin was near what is now born in the border between Croatia and Bosnia, the Serbian parents and moved to Frankfurt, where he was two.

Then there is a large group of players in a German-born German mother and a father of another country. Mario Gomez, for example, is the son of a Spaniard, even if his father was a Swabian honor himself, having arrived in southern Germany when he was 15. Sami Khedira father is from Tunisia, Dennis Aogo from Nigeria and daddy Jerome Boateng is, as mentioned, is Ghana.

Finally, there Cacau, who was born in Brazil Brazilian parents. In fact, as Brazilian until he came to Germany at the age of 18 years, it was not a football team, but with a samba band! (As a roadie, not a dancer.)

But it was a long, long time ago. Today Cacau a pleasant town to live in, surrounded by vineyards and the Swabian is so well appreciated by his neighbors that he has six votes in the last local elections, although not under the applicants.

"My whole German mentality, he said - and his passport. Cacau was naturalized in early 2009, following a trial in which he is to remember all the names of the Chancellor of Germany. That why it the nickname of" Helmut "by former team-mate Ludovic Magnin . On Wednesday, with Ghana, he began the game - and his family stake Brazil saw on TV, T-shirts bear in Germany.

It would be foolish to suppose that this team version of the famous multi-cultural French coast, ostensibly to help a nation, are to merge in 1998, is. But a smaller version? Yes, perhaps, why not? Therefore, it is not perfect this page through when the pressure came on, and did, as some observers have noted, without a trace of irony, the word "proverbial German virtues.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Landon Donovan, who spent time in Germany. His goal in overtime against Algeria means that we now meet England in the next cycle. Perfect.