A square in Buenos Aires following the Germany-Argentina match July 3, Photo: www.lanacion.com.

This was somewhat expected. In Buenos Aires, days before the match there were comments with an undertone like, “mmm…now we’ve reached one with Germany”. The Argentines celebrated all the victories of Diego Maradona’s national team: the first one in the match against Nigeria, then the one with South Korea, with Greece and then Mexico. But the schedule said that Argentina had to meet Germany in the quarter finals yet again. Perhaps there was an assumption of a defeat for the Argentinean squad. And we didn’t exaggerate.