Rio de Janeiro , Brazil ( CNN ) -- You may have watched in wonder as Germany dismantled Brazil on Tuesday . But to really appreciate the art of German football you need to understand the lingo . The sport has its own vocabulary and , as is common in the German language , most new terms are created by simply lumping several words together to make a 15 or 20 character monster word that would be an entire sentence in many other languages . So here is our guide to help you become an expert while watching Sunday 's final . 1 . First , start strong in defense . You need a great goalkeeper or a TEUFELSKERL ( Devil 's Man ) . He needs to command the penalty area , be the first to corner kicks and block shots and penalty kicks . German history is rich with great goalies from Sepp Maier to Bodo Illgner and Oliver Kahn all the way to today 's man between the posts , Manuel Neuer . 2 . If your goalkeeper does not perform he is laughed off as a FLIEGENFÄNGER ( fly catcher ) . 3 . Moving on to your defense , which is always the core of a German team . This is the ABWEHRRIEGEL ( defensive barrier ) . 4 . Great defenders have to excel at the BLUTGRAETSCHE ( blood tackle ) to take out attacking opponents . Prototypical German defenders have names like Guido Buchwald and Jürgen Kohler from the 1990 World Cup squad , who struck fear into most opponents . 5 . There are also smaller more shifty defensive players who can not be shaken off by attackers that are called WADENBEISSER ( calf-biters ) , like Berti Vogts from the 1974 squad or Philip Lahm from today 's team . Vogts earned the nickname the Terrier , like a little dog who never stops snarling around its enemy . 6 . Think of the German midfield and you think of names like Lothar Mathäus , Michael Ballack , Stefan Effenberg or today 's squad which is laden with talent including Bastian Schweinsteiger , Sami Khedira , Mesut Oezil , Toni Kroos , and Mario Götze . Great midfielders who lead teams are known as MITTELFELDREGISSEURE ( midfield directors ) . 7 . These midfielders must also be able to deliver perfect BANANENFLANKEN ( banana passes ) , usually with the outside of their foot , setting the forwards free on goal . 8 . And talking of the forwards , their main job is to score goals . You want a striker on your team who is a TORJÄGER ( goal hunter ) . 9 . But in order to be a great TORJÄGER he has to have a great TORRIECHER ( goal nose ) , someone with the instinct to be in the right place at the right time . Germany is fortunate to have had two TORJÄGER with the same last name in Gerd Müller , who scored the decisive goal in the 1974 final against the Netherlands , and Thomas Müller of today 's squad who was the top scorer in the 2010 World Cup and has five so far in Brazil . Then there was the current U.S. coach Jürgen Klinsmann who made his mark in the 1990 World Cup . 10 . If your forwards and strikers have many chances but never seem to put the ball in the net , they will be dismissed as CHANCENTOD ( death of chances ) . Believe it or not , Germany has had its share of these . 11 . If you have your WADENBEISSER and TORRIECHER in your team , good for you . If not your team may be ridiculed as a GURKENTRUPPE ( cucumber troop ) . 12 . Or , even worse , a KARNEVALSVEREIN ( carnival team ) . Brazil perhaps . Ultimately , to be German you need to temper success with pessimism and criticism . After a 7-1 victory over Brazil you have to warn against complacency in the final and you must acknowledge the team still has weaknesses . People from other countries often can not understand this . It is why Americans were furious when Klinsmann said that the U.S. had no chance of winning the World Cup . He was not trying to be mean . He was just being German and guess what , he took team America further than most fans predicted . So here 's to German football strategy , team lingo and pessimism , seeing themselves as the underdog against Argentina even after winning 7-1 . Viel Spass beim Fussball !
Do you know your fly catcher from your banana pass ? German success in the World Cup is matched by its creative language . But to be German , winning must be tempered with pessimism , says CNN 's Fred Pleitgen .