If Germany do not beat Ghana on Wednesday at Ellis Park they are goners. The beauty of the group situation is any two of the four can qualify from here. The danger for Germany is Ghana need only a draw to squeeze into the last 16.
This is a plight the Germans can blame only on themselves or their psyche, which is said to have none too good a disposition towards facing up to European sides east of Germany, when they lost to Serbia.
A lot will depend on which Germany turn up on Wednesday evening at Ellis Park. Will it be the youthful side full of vigour and vim that pulped Australia or will it be the side that was so low on discipline and drive that even a dubious penalty record was created when Podolski became the first German since 1974 (Uli Hoeness) to miss a spot-kick that was not part of a penalty shootout.
On the long bus ride from the airport to Sun City in whose luxurious environs we are to be accommodated on our South African sojourn we could not but wonder which Mesut Ozil would turn up on Wednesday evening — the dashing midfielder of Turkish descent who made so many brilliant passes it was not possible to count them in the match against the team from Down Under — or the diffident player who was forced to fall back to defend more than feed his glamorous striker colleagues against Serbia.
So wonderfully redolent of total football — Totaalvoetbal — was Germany’s showing in their opening game that pundits had begun fantasising about a high-voltage Germany-Argentina final. The soothsayers also climbed on to the Teutonic bandwagon, beginning to say with a clarity that others could not quite divine about how Germany were destined to win the 2010 edition.
The mathematicians also got into the act, churning out incredible number theories that pointed to a German win, with the proviso that they would beat Serbia. Now that the anticipated win has not materialised, everyone is backtracking a bit.
Joachim Leow’s team slid some, and predictably so, on the bookies odds sheets. Everyone knows the game at Ellis Park is a sudden death encounter. If the Germans do not win, they go home.
Maybe it is a curse of expectation that a side which brought all the enthusiasm of youth into their opening game and all that vim and verve should be facing the grim prospect of an early exit. But, having said that, it is a known fact that Germany have enough resilience to come through the big test, down Ghana and get on to the knockouts with the dream of a place in the final intact.
It would serve this Cup well if such a good team were to survive the vicissitudes and ratchet up the class of electric action in this competition. Germany must do it for the Cup — as Shakira says, ‘this time for Africa’.