Germany's national soccer team coach Loew walks behind player Philipp Lahm during a training session of their team in Santo Andre village
Germany's national soccer team coach Joachim Loew (L) walks behind player Philipp Lahm (R) during a training session of their team in Santo Andre village, north of Porto Seguro June 10, 2014. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

Final Score

Germany 4 Portugal 0

Overview

The thirteenth match of the FIFA World Cup 2014 is going to be held between Germany and Portugal. The Group G match has all the ingredients to be a classic. These two heavyweight teams will definitely want to win the first match in the tournament.

Teams

Germany: Germany comes to the tournament as one of the favourites. Germany reached at least the semi-finals in the last four major tournaments, the FIFA World Cups in 2006 and 2010 as well as the UEFA European Championships in 2008 and 2012. Germany's history at the World Cups has been phenomenal as it reached the finals in 7 occasions, 3 of which it won. It won against Armenia (6-1) and drew against Cameroon (2-2) in the pre-World Cup friendlies. It never fails to score, so will be the case against Portugal.

Portugal: Portugal, on the other hand, has the FIFA Ballon d'Or Cristiano Ronaldo. Interestingly, German football icon Jurgen Klinsmann is the manager of the U.S. team which has shown promise by defeating Germany in a friendly in June. Portugal won against Republic of Ireland (5-1) and Mexico (1-0) in the pre-World Cup friendlies. However, according to past records, Portugal tends to struggle in the group stages but is expected to be stronger in the eliminators. Ronaldo will not be able display his skills in this match as German defenders will make life difficult for him. He may still be able to score.

Head to Head

These two teams played 17 times against each other. Germany won 9, drew 5 and lost 3 times. Portugal scored 16 out of total 41 goals scored.

Key Players

Germany: Mesut Ozil, Mario Goetze & Philipp Lahm

Portugal: Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe & William Carvalho

Date, Time & Venue

Brazil's time zone is UTC/GMT -3. The match starts at 1 pm (local time) on June 16, which means it is 2 am on June 17 in New South Wales, Australia. The match will be held at Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador.

Prediction

Germany will be one of the teams that will start the tournament with an outstanding performance. Ronaldo will score once for Portugal but that won't be enough. Germany will score several times and win it 3-1.

Group Predictions

Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E, Group F, Group G & Group H

Reference: FIFA

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au

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