Germany are no longer inevitable as painful World Cup failures loom large

A dozen years ago, Andre Schurrle crossed, Mario Gotze volleyed and Germany became World Cup winners for the fourth time. There was a normality to do it: this was what Germany did, and if not they reached at least the quarter-finals, because they had done that in every tournament from 1954 onwards. There have been some unexpected developments since then and not merely because Schurrle retired before his 30th birthday and now spends some of his time in winter climbing icy mountains wearing only s