Germany World Cup heroes return to huge fan party

At a party 24 years in the making, hundreds of thousands of Germans showed their admiration and adoration for their World Cup winners in a victory parade to the Brandenburg Gate today.
The players, in matching black T-shirts bearing "1," lapped up the love by playing up to the estimated 400,000 people packing the "fan mile" in front of the Berlin landmark.
Fans began lining the street overnight to welcome home coach Joachim Loew's team and the trophy. Germany's fourth World Cup, the first since 1990, crowned years of work by Loew to modernize the team, and followed near misses at recent tournaments.

"We're all world champions!" Loew told the crowd.
"Of course, it was a long way to the title, and an incredibly tough one in the end. But we're incredibly happy to be here with the fans now."
Mario Goetze, the scorer in the 1-0 win over Argentina in the final on Sunday, was greeted with deafening cheers by the sea of fans waving black, red and gold Germany flags.

Midfielder Toni Kroos led the crowd in a chant of "Miro Klose" -- a tribute to veteran striker Miroslav Klose, whose two goals took his World Cup tally to 16 and made him the tournament's all-time leading scorer.

When the players emerged on stage to take their accoldaes, the fans welcomed each of them with a chant of "football god" -- giving Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Mueller, Goetze and Klose the loudest cheers.
"We're just mega-proud of this achievement, after standing here in 2006 and 2008 as third and then as second and now we've finally done it after this long journey, with this sensational team," defender Per Mertesacker said.