Germans had a hard time believing what happened Tuesday night in Brazil. Sure, they were celebrating their country's 7-1 win over the home favorites in a World Cup semifinal — street musicians on Berlin's S-Bahn were playing "for the German champions" — but newspaper headlines spoke of incredulity rather than sheer joy.

"Unimaginable, incomprehensible, inconceivable," said the headline in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine. "Is it really true?" wondered Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Everything about that victory, however, was logical and even overdue: The entire German soccer system has been working toward this moment since 2001. Yes, the Brazilian squad came apart after Thomas Mueller and Miroslav Klose scored the first two goals, allowing three more in six minutes.