One thing was certain even before the final 5-3 victory in Sweden: Germany will go to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil as winners of European qualifying Group C. This means that Germany will have featured in 18 of the 20 World Cup tournaments, having only failed to qualify in 1930 and 1950. Germany holds second place in the all- time World Cup table behind five-time winners Brazil, who are the only country to have participated in every single World Cup. No other nation has played more games than Germany (99) in the World Cup finals, not even Brazil (97). Now that Germany have secured their ticket for the 2014 World Cup, DFB.de has summarised the main milestones and most interesting facts from their qualifying campaign. GOALS, CARDS, MINUTES PLAYED Results: Joachim Löws team ended their qualifying campaign unbeaten, with an immaculate record away from home: five games, five wins, 19 goals scored and just five goals conceded. As a result, Germany have still never lost a World Cup qualifier away from home. On their way to the 2014 World Cup, the three-time world champions won four of their five home matches, allowing themselves a memorable 4-4 draw against Sweden in Berlin. In that match, Germany raced into a 4-0 lead within the first hour before conceding four goals in a frightening final 30 minutes. The teams highest-scoring victory in this qualifying campaign was the 6-1 victory in Ireland. Stalwarts: Only three players played in all ten qualifying matches: goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, Mesut Özil and Thomas Müller. Only Neuer played every minute of every match, although Özil played 892 of a possible 900 minutes. Captain Philipp Lahm completed eight matches, whilst Sven Bender (eight minutes) and Sidney Sam (11 minutes) made the briefest appearances. All in all, national coach Joachim Löw used 24 players during the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign. Goalscorers: Germany were the highest-scoring team in European World Cup qualification, scoring 36 goals in ten matches, an average of 3.6 goals per game. Mesut Özil was Germanys leading marksman with eight goals, of which two were penalties. Marco Reus hit the target five times, whilst Thomas Müller, Miroslav Klose, Mario Götze and André Schürrle each scored four goals. Bookings: Germany completed their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign without receiving a single red card. Philipp Lahm and Marco Reus were each shown three yellow cards, and were each suspended for one match after their second bookings, with Lahm missing the 6-1 victory in Ireland and Reus the 3-0 win away to Kazakhstan. Bastian Schweinsteiger suffered the same fate for the reverse fixture against Kazakhstan (4-1), and Sami Khedira missed the final match in Sweden after his yellow card against Ireland. Attendances: A total of 434,693 fans watched Germanys ten qualifying matches, an average of 43,469 per match. The average attendance was significantly higher for the five home matches (52,575) than for the five away matches (34,363). The highest attendance was 72,369 for the 4-4 draw with Sweden at Berlins Olympic Stadium, whilst only 4,818 fans were present for the 3-0 victory over the Faroe Islands. The World Cup draw: The draw for the World Cup finals will be held at Costa do Sauípe in the Brazilian state of Bahia on Friday 6 December at 17:00 CET (13:00 local time). The opening round of matches will be played in eight groups of four teams. FIFAs October rankings will decide how the teams are drawn, with hosts Brazil and the seven highest-placed teams in the FIFA ranking heading each group. Based on ranking points collected, Germany are now ranked third in the world behind Spain and Argentina and are therefore certain to be among the eight seeded teams.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 02:33:13 +0000
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