July 13 has a special resonance in German soccer. On this date, the national team was crowned World Champion in Rio de Janeiro in 2014. Twelve years later, two heroes from back then have honored the anniversary on Instagram: Bastian Schweinsteiger (41) and Toni Kroos (36) shared memories of the greatest success of their careers.
Kroos didn't need many words for this. "Twelve years. These moments...", the former midfielder wrote alongside his retrospective. Schweinsteiger was a bit more elaborate. "On this day twelve years ago, dreams came true", his post reads, which he accompanied with, among others, Germany, trophy, and Brazil emojis.
Götze scores in the 113th minute
What happened that evening in the sold-out Maracanã has long been part of German soccer's collective memory. The German team defeated Argentina 1-0 in the final after extra time. Mario Götze scored the decisive goal in the 113th minute after André Schürrle brought the ball into the penalty area. It was Germany's fourth World Cup title.
Bayern, Bundesliga and Arsenal join the celebration
Not only the two former national team players brought the evening back to life. FC Bayern celebrated in its anniversary post "the fourth star" and recalled an "unforgettable night" as well as the performance of its players at the time. The club provided a large portion of the World Champion squad in 2014, including Manuel Neuer, Philipp Lahm, Jérôme Boateng, Thomas Müller, Götze as well as Schweinsteiger and Kroos.
FC Arsenal also looked back on the German triumph - with the pun "Ya Gunners, Ya!". The focus was on the Arsenal players at the time: Mesut Özil, Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski. Özil and Mertesacker played in the final, Podolski was part of the squad as a substitute. All three returned to London as World Champions afterwards.
