Germans awoke on Wednesday to discover the 7-1 demolition of Brazil in their World Cup semifinal was not a delightful dream but a scarcely believable reality. The front-page headline in the country’s biggest-selling newspaper, Bild, read simply: “7-1. No words for it!”

The paper dedicated the next six pages to pictures of the Germany players scoring and celebrating, and marked veteran striker’s Miroslav Klose’s record-breaking 16th World Cup goal by offering readers a poster of “Miro Klose, Football God!”

When it finally got to words, it declared the team “immortal” and wrote: “This 7-1 is worth as much as a title.”

ZDF public television, which broadcast the semifinal against Brazil, said an average 32.57 million people in Germany — which has about 80 million inhabitants — watched the match. The channel said that was a record for a German TV program. Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup as both player and coach, tweeted: “What was that? Hard to believe.”

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung broadsheet joined in the chorus of disbelief with the online headline: “Seven-one — is that really true?’’

Changing loyalties

Brazilians in a northeastern town near Germany’s training base adopted an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach to Tuesday’s World Cup semi-final defeat by throwing their support behind the side that had thrashed them 7-1 just hours earlier. Several hundred Brazilians waited for hours in the pouring rain to cheer the Germany players as they disembarked their team bus shortly after midnight and boarded a ferry for the crossing to their quarters in Santo Andre. (Reuters)