Quick inter-passing on the right caught the Portuguese
napping as their defence stretched to the limit and a desperate attempt to deal
with the attack resulted in a very soft penalty awarded to Germany. Muller
tucked the ball neatly into the left corner of the net.
If that goal was a fortunate gift, the second was
almost a part of a ‘score one, get one free’ promotion. A similar counter-attack
after a patient and composed football by Portugal, Germany sent a long ball to
the right, played a cutback, took a deflected shot that went out for a corner.
With the attention of three defenders, Mark Hummels rose majestically to powerfully
head a Toni Kroos corner-kick past the goalkeeper.
Until then man-of-the-match, Pepe received a simple
ball at the back and fended off Muller’s challenge, brushing his face with a
stray arm. Muller theatrically fell, attracting Pepe’s wrath who confronted him
while still seated and head-butted him. The referee took exception to that
behaviour and sent the Real Madrid defender off.
It became a little too easy for the Germans as they
cut through the outnumbered opposition like hot knife through butter. They
enjoyed the better exchanges on the right, lobbed the ball over the centre to
the left. Failure to pick the second ball became detrimental as that ball was
centred to the penalty spot and the defender half-cleared the ball to Muller in
a tight spot. Muller gladly doubled his goal tally with a hard and low shot.
Portugal had lost a man through injury, made a forced
substitution as damage control for the sending off. They lost probably their
second best player in Contrao through another injury. They tried to stay
compact as Germany tried to stretch them further. To their credit, they created
half-chances occasionally and chased every ball.
Poor ball handling by the goalkeeper gifted Muller
with his hat-trick. The initial error of his poor clearance presented a good
chance that the Germans squandered. The follow up attack came from midfield as
the ball was fed to the right, crossed into the 12-yard box. The goalkeeper
went down for it but only parried it to the feet of the German striker who
directed the ball over the line.
Germany ran down the clock in energy-saving mode as
the Portuguese hoped for a face-saver, employing a 1-4-3-2. They were pretty much
pleased to deal with the pedestrian pace of the match in the second half. Neur had to deal with a closing remark by
Cristiano Ronaldo whose last minute free kick stung his palms to bring to an
end a miserable occasion for Portugal.
