“Show the world you are better than Messi,” Mario Gotze was told, and he did. Not over the course of a career or even a game, but in a moment that even Lionel Messi, the four-time World Player of the Year, has never emulated.
He controlled Andre Schurrle’s cross on his chest, swivelled and volleyed past Sergio Romero. Germany were World Cup winners. Gotze was the man who had delivered the most prestigious prize of all. Joachim Low’s inspirational instruction to his substitute had reaped a reward.
Two years on, few claim Gotze is better than Messi. Indeed, Gotze does not. “At the time Jogi Low said that to me, it was very motivating,” he said in February. “In retrospect, silence about it would have been better. Perhaps journalists began comparing me with Messi after this but that just makes no sense.”
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Now the more pertinent comparisons are with Mario Gomez. The immediate aim, rather than being the best in the world, is being the best striker available to Germany now. Gotze has been their false nine against Ukraine and Poland and has posed too little of a threat. The usually potent Thomas Muller’s uncharacteristic loss of form has not helped, and Gotze accepted: “Of course we want to have more punch in attack.”
“We have not had the goal success we wanted,” Muller added. He is protected by his record, Gotze imperilled because of his reputation. He has become a paradox, ostensibly one of the most successful footballers of his generation and yet with the feel of a player who is failing to realise his potential.
Consider his CV: he is a World Cup winner with 54 caps for Germany at just 24. He has won the Bundesliga in five of the last six seasons and the German Cup in three of them. “Gotze is a miracle boy, a boy wonder,” Low said in the glow of victory in Rio.
Others had been similarly excited rather earlier. “One of the best talents Germany has ever had,” said Matthias Sammer, Germany’s then technical director and the outstanding player of Euro ’96, in 2010. In 2011, Germany’s World Cup-winning captain and manager Franz Beckenbauer declared: “It is not possible to stop Mario Gotze. He has the same assets as Messi.”
Pep Guardiola evidently disagreed. The manager who spurred Messi on to greatness fashioned a Bayern Munich side where Gotze became ever more of a fringe figure. He only started 11 Bundesliga games last season.
His 2013 move from Borussia Dortmund has started to feel like a case of Bayern weakening their rivals, rather than strengthening themselves. There was an expectation Gotze would leave, perhaps to be reunited with his former Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, before Carlo Ancelotti’s arrival seemed decisive when he pledged his future to the German champions.
The more immediate concern is the German national team. Gotze’s deployment in attack reflects on a strange shortage. Their golden generation have lent riches in every position except natural full-backs and out-and-out strikers. Hence a No 10 leads the line, not especially convincingly. Germany may be missing Miroslav Klose, who retired from international football after the World Cup. They could see Gomez, the only specialist striker in the squad, as the nearest thing to their record scorer.
The sense is that they may benefit from reuniting the midfield trio, of Toni Kroos, Sami Khedira and Bastian Schweinsteiger, who provided the platform for the 7-1 humiliation of Brazil then. Perhaps not against Northern Ireland on Tuesday night, but when they face more gifted opponents.
Gotze's position feels more precarious. "Sometimes you are the dog, sometimes you are the tree," he said, rather oddly, this week.
It was a mysterious comment from an enigmatic figure. Because, and while there are far worse things to be, one tipped for greatness feels the most disappointing player ever to score the winner in a World Cup final.
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