It had been preceded by the 7-1 demolition of the hosts, Brazil, in the semi-final. Seldom has a soccer match so resembled an execution. It was not only Germans who felt the need to look away. Domination is not the modern German way. Brazilian agony was too explicit not to cringe.

BBC commentators could not resist the clichés. Germany was “clinical.” It was “efficient.” People tweeted, “Don’t mention the score.” With Germany there is always something unmentionable that rhymes with war. It is not easy to be German. But in that difficulty, as this team suggested, there lie strengths. Everything about this team, from its talent to its ethics, was admirable. The right team does not always win. In this case it did.

Germany, I said, does not believe in quick fixes. It is worth repeating because it is an idea that sets the country apart in an age where a quick killing, tomorrow’s share price, instant gratification and short-termism are the norm. Germans on the whole think what the rest of the world builds is flimsy. Anyone who has felt the weight of a German window, or the satisfying hermetic clunk of one closing, knows they have a point. The German time frame is longer.

Why Germany differs in this may be debated. Having plumbed the depths of destruction and evil, having understood the depravity into which a “civilized” country may descend, Germany had to rebuild from the “Stunde Null,” or “Zero Hour,” of 1945. It had to hoist itself up step by step; and it had to build into its reconstituted self the guarantees that ensured no relapse was possible. This took planning. It took persistence. It involved prudence. Even before all this the first German unity of 1871 came only after centuries of strife at the European crossroads. Geborgenheit is an untranslatable German word but no less important for that. It means roughly warmth, home, trust and security, everything that is so precious in part because it may go up in smoke.

Perhaps German success is the result of the immensity of past German failure. I think that has something to do with it, even a lot. Whatever its roots, German success is important and instructive.