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Confederation analysis 87at the hands of France was followed up bya convincing victory over Honduras in theirfinal group match. Just as it appeared thattheir round-of-16 match against Argentinawould be decided in a penalty shoot-outfollowing 120 minutes of goalless action, anindividual mistake and some misfortune infront of the Argentinian goal saw the Swissdream collapse late on. Belgium went intothe tournament on the back of an excellentqualifying campaign, as a result of whichmany people were looking for good thingsfrom them, and they certainly went some waytowards meeting those expectations. The RedDevils, who were a good blend of youth andexperience, cruised through the group stage,saw off the USA in the round of 16 thanks tobetter individual performances, but finally lostto an early Argentinian goal in the quarterfinals.Germany got off to a flying start witha 4-0 win over Portugal, but they surprisinglystruggled against Ghana before going on todominate the USA despite only claiming a onegoalwin. In the round of 16, another Africanteam – Algeria – posed considerable problemsbefore the eventual world championsprevailed in extra time. The champions of 1954,1974 and 1990 did not have any such problemsagainst France, however, and they followedthat up with an historic 7-1 victory over Brazilin the semi-finals in a match that was a fairreflection of the strengths of the two teams.The final saw them crown their impressiveperformances with victory over Argentina.Having seen Germany claim the World Cuptitle and with a total of six European teamsreaching the knockout stages, Europe can bemore than happy with their performance atBrazil 2014. They have finally also broken thehoodoo that said that a European team wasunable to claim World Cup glory on SouthAmerican soil.