Both Teams Advance

The Germany-USA match at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil had the peculiar atmosphere of a game both teams needed to not lose rather than win. Grouped together in Group G alongside Portugal and Ghana, by the time they faced each other on June 26th the math was such that a German win and a US draw would send both through. Which is more or less what happened.

Thomas Müller scored the only goal. Germany won 1-0. Both teams qualified. Jürgen Klinsmann—former Germany striker, architect of Germany’s 2006 World Cup run—was coaching the United States that year, which gave the whole thing a specific layer of weirdness that no one quite knew how to process out loud. He knew every opponent his team was facing better than any American coach could have. Whether that helped is debatable; the Americans went through regardless.

There’s a particular kind of party you hold for a group stage match—provisional, hedged, the celebrating always slightly tentative because the outcome is still conditional. You’re not celebrating arriving anywhere; you’re celebrating staying in the conversation. The food gets eaten, the drinks go down, and everyone goes home having won nothing and lost nothing and ready for the next round of anxiety.