SEOUL, 27 June — German coach Rudi Voeller issued a stark warning to his World Cup final opponents yesterday, reminding them that “the best team doesn’t always win.”
Voeller has turned around the German side in recent months since taking over midway through 2000 and now, despite coming here shorn of several injured first-choice stars, his team are on the threshold of a fourth world title after beating South Korea 1-0 in the semifinal on Tuesday.
“A few months ago we could never have expected to get through all the way to the final,” he said yesterday ahead of the other semifinal between Brazil and surprise package Turkey in Saitama, Japan.
“We were under a lot of pressure with two playoff games against Ukraine to qualify and whoever has been around me the past couple of years knows things haven’t always been easy.
“But we’ve come a long way together. We’ve grasped our opportunity by the horns.”
Voeller won the competition as a player under Franz Beckenbauer in 1990 and is now a game away from emulating his former mentor as a World Cup winner as both player and coach.
“Whoever we play in the final it will be tough,” added Voeller.
“But it’s not necessarily the best teams which wins. If it were then Brazil would have won the World Cup 14 times.”
Germany will nevertheless go into the final showdown with something approaching a ghost team.
They come to Asia with the heart of their defense ripped out having lost stalwarts Jens Nowotny and Christian Worns to injury.
They also lost midfielder and potential world superstar Sebastian Deisler to a damaged knee while the experienced Mehmet Scholl elected to stay at home because he was not fit enough.
Now the third pillar of German creativity in midfield, Michael Ballack, is also out, suspended following his second yellow card against the Koreans on Friday — just four minutes before notching the only goal of the game and his third of the tournament.
Voeller knows he is running out of aces up his sleeve.
“It’s almost impossible to replace Ballack completely. And it’s all the more surprising we are here in the final as we’ve lost virtually all our defense.
“Nowotny, Worns, also Marko Rehmer — that’s three pillars of our qualifying campaign,” noted Voeller.
“We have had to field a makeshift defense.
“But what was designed as a stop-gap solution has turned into a revelation,” added Voeller, who paid tribute to those who have stepped into the breach.
The heroic back four have along with world-class ’keeper Oliver Kahn conceded just one goal so far, becoming the meanest defense of any finalist since England in 1966. The four comprise rookie Christoph Metzelder, Thomas Linke, Torsten Frings and Carsten Ramelow, who bounced back from a suspension and being dropped against the United States to star against the Koreans.
Voeller says his makeshift side have gone a long way to silencing the critics.
“With what German sides have achieved in the past 30 or 40 years it was clear we have a lot to live up to and it was normal we’d get criticized.
“The level of expectancy was so high. Then there were our two failures in the qualifying campaign — the defeat at home to England and then only drawing with Finland.
“But we have to get away from the idea that Germany can only lose to a handful of countries. Asia and Africa are catching up,” said Voeller, praising the Koreans and noting that Cameroon, had they not slipped up against his own side, would have been one of his bets for a place in the last four.
German players train while waiting for opponent’s identity
There was no rest for Germany’s football players yesterday as coach Rudi Voeller ordered training barely 12 hours after the 1-0 semifinal victory over South Korea as the Germans tensely waited to see who their opponent would be in Sunday’s final.
At a press conference, Voeller said the team was now determined to win the title.
“We want to try now to put the icing on the cake,” the coach said.
Meanwhile a German team spokesman said that striker Miroslav Klose, whose five goals in the first round helped the team advance to the knockout stage, was expected to be fit for Sunday’s match.
Klose had to be substituted after the break against South Korea on Tuesday after picking up an injury to his ribs late in the first half. He is receiving medical treatment and sat out the training session yesterday.
Defender Sebastian Kehl did some running on his own instead of participating in the training session, while captain Oliver Kahn, defender Carsten Ramelow and midfielder Bernd Schneider trained for a shortened period.
The side’s match-winner in Tuesday’s game, Michael Ballack, who will miss the final after being booked for the second time in the knockout stage, said that the team has enough confidence to go further now.
“The team has stoked up so much self-confidence that nothing can derail them any more,” he said. “I am trying to give the players the motivation that they need to make the impossible possible.”
Voeller gave the players a free afternoon yesterday, which most of the players used to spend time in Seoul with their wives.
From today, the team is expected to spend all their time preparing for the final. Kahn said that “now is not the time to change things in our training pattern and preparation”.
German papers celebrate
football triumph
Germans woke up yesterday to newspaper headlines around the country celebrating their football team’s 1-0 World Cup semifinal victory over South Korea and pictures of jubilant but tragic goalscorer Michael Ballack sliding along the grass in joy.
“Final!!!”, the huge frontpage headline of the mass-circulation Bild daily screamed out to its readers, adding however: “But Ballack bursts into tears in the changing room” — a reference to the fact that the hero of the game will miss the final after picking up a second yellow card while stopping a dangerous Korean attack.
“Yes, yes, YES! We are in the final. 1-0 against South Korea — all Germany is celebrating our World Cup heroes,” the paper added.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which also had the picture of “tragic hero” Ballack on its front page, said that the German team had “produced its best performance of the tournament”.
The paper highlighted the fact that Rudi Voeller first ran out and embraced goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, who had made a great save early in the game, and then quoted the coach as saying: “We hadn’t always played as well as we did today.”
“Who would have thought it possible”, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said in its headline of a front-page story noting that the German players had played with great determination against the co-hosts on their way to the country’s seventh World Cup final.
