RIO DE JANEIRO -- It's been eerily quiet at Campo Bahia over the past few days -- as quiet as during any period for a German national team at recent tournaments. The German media, usually so adept at finding flies in the ointment, had nothing but praise for Joachim Low and his players in the wake of their 4-0 win versus Portugal.
The general consensus was that the national manager had got his tactics and lineup totally right -- who could disagree? -- and that all players had played well or even better than anticipated. Arsenal's Mesut Ozil was perhaps the one Germany player who didn't fully convince in Salvador, but his performance -- and sad face after his substitution -- hardly featured in the post-match reports. It would have felt churlish to single him out for criticism after such an impressive curtain-raiser.
The performance and scoreline in their opening game have left little to nothing to be desired, and as a consequence, the buildup to the Ghana match on Saturday afternoon in Fortaleza has been very low key, too. Borussia Dortmund centre-back Mats Hummels is a doubt after picking up a hamstring injury in the first game -- "he wasn't 100 percent so far, we have to see how he is after the last training session," Low said on the eve of the match -- but the topic hasn't provoked the amount of hand-wringing it would have a week before.
In Jerome Boateng, Germany have a ready-made replacement for the man who scored Germany's second goal against the Portuguese. The 25-year-old is happier in the centre than as a right-back, while his athleticism and pace is probably an even better fit for Arsenal's Per Mertesacker than the more elegant, light-footed Hummels. Sampdoria's Shkodran Mustafi will probably come in on the right after doing well as a 73rd minute substitute -- and Cristiano Ronaldo's opponent. (An alternative scenario, proposed by tabloid Bild, has Matthias Ginter of SC Freiburg taking up Hummels' role. That would be a genuine surprise -- so too would be Dortmund left-back Erik Durm's involvement.)
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The fact that there is so little concern about Hummels' potential absence can be explained by Low's number of options, but only up to a point. More importantly, there's a widespread feeling that Germany must win since their chances against the Black Stars on Saturday are exclusively viewed through the prism of the first game.
Recency bias -- the unfounded belief that recent trends will continue into the future -- is a common occurrence in football. At World Cups, this phenomenon goes into overdrive, due to the low number of games for each team. You're not only just as good as your last game, as far as supporters and the media are concerned; every tournament game also changes the perception of previous games, retrospectively. England's Euro 2012 showings are a very good example. Nobody remembers the (fairly) competent draws versus Ukraine and France, nor the stirring 3-2 win over Sweden. Only the drab quarterfinal exit versus Italy on penalties has stuck in the memory and coloured the recollection of the whole tournament.
The German team know better than others that first looks can be conceiving -- or to put it less strongly, misleading. The Portugal win on Monday made it five opening wins in a row at major tournaments. The corresponding number of trophies? Zero. At the Euros in 2008 and the last World Cup in South Africa, those first wins didn't even spare them nervy all-or-nothing affairs in the third group games when progress to the knockout rounds was hanging by a thread. Low's team actually lost their second matches against Croatia (2008) and Serbia (2010) and were suddenly face-to-face with the ignominy of an early exit.
As such, Low's main message ahead of Saturday's Ghana game was that such an unnerving scenario should be avoided at all costs. A draw would go a long way to doing just that; a win would effectively guarantee qualification, regardless of the U.S. national team's result versus Portugal later that night.
"If you let up at this World Cup, you lose," Low said. "We don't want a final in the third game," Sami Khedira added. The Real Madrid midfielder was one of the biggest winners in the first game, when he overcame his fitness doubts to star in a box-to-box role.
Khedira's runs from deep, as well as his defensive work, should be just as important against Ghana. According to reports, there's a split in the Black Stars' camp -- Schalke-based Kevin-Prince Boateng, brother of Jerome, is unhappy that he was left out in favour of Jordan Ayew in the U.S. defeat -- but Kwesi Appiah's team will surely defend deeper and make Germany work harder to create any openings than the self-destructive Portuguese did. Toni Kroos' new-found appetite for battle will also be tested.
Low's target on Saturday is to render the rendezvous with his former boss Jurgen Klinsmann meaningless, at least as far as Germany are concerned; they could win not one but two games in the Castelao stadium. Judging from the public perception back home and in the media, grave problems are not expected against a team that counts no international stars at the peak of their powers amid their ranks. The optimism inside the camp is hopefully a bit more measured, for the Germans' sake. Italy, Brazil and the Netherlands have already shown in this tournament that "easy" second games can turn into tricky assignments in no time at all.