Germany are so qualified to lift cup

The outcome of the Fifa World Cup is not decided by facts and figures. Neither is it decided by history. It is also not decided by sentiment and patriotism. The outcome of the World Cup is decided by current form, good luck, and the good judgment – or lack of it – of the centre referee.

In terms of good luck it is important to note such mundane things as the side of the bed on which a player or coach wakes up on the day it matters the most. Players and coaches are not, after all, super beings. They are human.

Beyond our undiluted adulation as superstars, they are our fathers, brothers, cousins and uncles.

They also are, as millions of Kenyans have recently experienced in the case of Divock Origi, just kindred spirits. As we wake up in a good or bad mood, so do they. Our good or bad mood affects our performance in the duties we perform every day. Ditto our superstars.

On the basis of this hypothesis, I think that Spain’s successor as champions of the world is Germany.

I will go into no analysis of how the cohesion of the current German team has been built over more than one decade since United States coach Jurgen Klinsman, their goal scoring machine and legendary penalty area diver, handed over the reins of the national team to his studious intern Joachim Loew.

My colleagues in sports journalism across the world are doing a fine job of it.

I think Germany will win because they are simply absolutely qualified to lift the Cup. They are the best team of Brazil 2014.(The knees wobble, the speech stutters, the eyes see doubles and you feel an extremely urgent need to sit down to steady yourself and take a deep breath at the mention of the name Brazil with its inexorable linkage to the dizzying figure 7-1)

Germany are technically qualified, they are mentally ready and they have been defeated enough times in their pursuit of a fourth World Cup title to learn how to take these beatings with the requisite stoicism. They are devoid of emotion, they know a job has to be done and that 2018 is far away. That is why they will be so methodical on Sunday.

Germany have an overwhelming advantage over Argentina: mind over heart. Argentina will go into this game with exactly the same debilitating problem as Brazil did in their semi-final meeting with Germany. Brazil went with sentiment, Germany with mind.

Brazil wanted to win because the people of Brazil wanted a win. They wanted to win because the people of Brazil wanted to be happy.

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Argentina will want to win in the Maracana because it will hurt Brazil. These are sentiments. But Germany will not be part to them. Germany will calculate how many metres their players are covering every minute. They will calculate the rate at which the players are tiring and correctly figure out who on the bench will be best placed to be in place should it come to penalties.

Argentina will rely on Messi. Germany will rely on the whole team, knowing that the energy of every man counts.

In the end, the final will come down to a duel between two contestants - Lionel Messi and the awfully clinical 11 men of Germany. That will be too much for the little Argentine genius. Although football is a celebration of the superhuman talent distilled in individual players, we often forget that it really is a team sport.

Germany viciously demonstrated this against a Neymar-less Brazil and although the result will be nowhere near 7-1 for them, they will still become the first European team to win a World Cup in South America.