Inevitably, the old third place playoff (played at every World Cup since 1934, except in 1950) creates a bit of debate about the worth of actually playing the game.
Nevertheless, reflecting Uruguay’s attitude going into this game, Luis Suarez told the press they wanted third place.
“The World Cup is not over yet,” Suarez said. “The World Cup goes on and just as we wanted to go as far as possible before, now we just want to make sure we are among the top three.”
Germany, on the other hand, as an established footballing powerhouse who had eyes on winning the World Cup trophy might be feeling a little de-motivated.
Interestingly, though, 40 years ago these two faced off in this exact fixture, with the Europeans victorious.
Germany, again, were victorious in the third place playoff four years ago defeating Portugal 3-1 after their disappointment of crashing out at the semi-final stage in their home tournament.
So on that evidence, you’d suspect the Germans will take the game seriously and look to restore some pride.
And Die Mannschaft boss Joachim Loew admitted as such when he commented: “Nobody needs to hang their heads low and we want to have a good final match.”
Nevertheless, as is the case always with these games, there will be changes and there’s several key players from both sides who have injury clouds. Here the probable line-ups;
Germany 1 Manuel Neuer – 16 Philipp Lahm, 17 Per Mertesacker, 3 Arne Friedrich, 2 Marcell Jansen – 7 Bastian Schweinsteiger, 6 Sami Khedira – 13 Thomas Mueller, 8 Mesut Oezil, 10 Lukas Podolski – 11 Miroslav Klose
*Unavailable’ – ‘‘none’’Doutbful– ‘‘Lukas Podolski (fever), Miroslav Klose (back)’’Uruguay'’1 Fernando Muslera – 22 Martin Caceres, 3 Diego Godin, 6 Mauricio Victorino, 16 Maxi Pereira – 11 Alvaro Pereira, 15 Diego Perez, 17 Egidio Arevalo Rios – 10 Diego Forlan, 7 Edinson Cavani, 9 Luis Suarez’’Unavailable– ‘‘Diego Lugano (injury)’’*Doutbful’’’ – ‘‘Diego Forlan (thigh)’‘Sports Pundit prediction – Germany 3 Uruguay 1’’