Germany's exciting young team came from behind to win third place in a scintillating clash with South America's best performer Uruguay that was the perfect appetizer for Sunday's World Cup final. Still absorbing the crushing disappointment of their semifinal defeats, Germany and Uruguay made sure their third place playoff Saturday night was no irrelevant sideshow before Spain and Netherlands go for the main prize. Both teams flew at each other from the off at Port Elizabeth, defying the miserable rainy conditions. Sami Khedira's late headed goal gave Germany a 3-2 victory after it had come back from 2-1 down in a ding-dong, end-to-end game. Both Uruguay's Diego Forlan and Germany's Thomas Mueller netted one to go joint top of the scorers' table. They reached five goals, together with Netherlands' Wesley Sneijder and Spain's David Villa who have an opportunity to better that Sunday evening at Johannesburg's Soccer City. Forlan's volleyed goal was typically spectacular for him. Then he nearly equalized with a free-kick in the last second of the match that struck the bar and symbolized the game's drama. “It just missed by a fraction,” lamented the blond-locked striker who has won legions of new admirers with his brilliant performances in South Africa. He and teammates will also rue the goalkeeping errors that aided two of Germany's goals. “I'm pretty tired but it's over now and it's time to have a rest,” Forlan added after the game. Unfortunately for Uruguay, striker Luis Suarez was booed every time he touched the ball by Africans in the crowd who remembered bitterly his handball on the line that denied Ghana a certain goal and a place in the semifinals. Suarez's “handball” was hailed as a heroic and instinctive act at home, but many Africans saw it as cheating. As well as for coming third, German coach Joachim Loew's team will be long remembered for its four-goal dismemberings of Argentina, England and Australia in earlier rounds. Germany also took third place at the last World Cup which it hosted in 2006. “We've done well here but next time we want to get to the next level,” said Saturday's match-winner Khedira. Some 14 African presidents and other global VIPs galore will be at the final. Queen Sofia of Spain and outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende will lead support for their teams. Fit again to join them is UEFA president Michel Platini. He fainted in a Johannesburg restaurant but was discharged from hospital Saturday and given a clean bill of health. Everyone hopes South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela will attend Sunday. But he is in frail health at 91 and his office has not confirmed if he will make it or not. There have been mercifully few hiccups for organizers of Africa's first World Cup, confounding pessimists' predictions of chaos, crime and failure. South Africans hope the world will look at them differently, perceptions of crime, poverty and an apartheid past giving way to images of fantastic new stadiums, modern transport systems, and blacks and whites side-by-side during a trouble-free month. South African President Jacob Zuma was full of praise for his people's enthusiastic contribution to the tournament. “The committed support given to Ghana and other African teams displayed African unity, love and solidarity in practice,” he said in a statement on the eve of the final. World Cup match officials have been a big success despite making mistakes in some games, FIFA's head of refereeing said. Jose-Marcia Garcia-Aranda said analysis of the first 62 matches showed that referees got more than 96 percent of their decisions right. “It is a big success. We have to say it is not an opinion (but) facts,” the Spanish official said. FIFA accepted that errors that were made, though in “only a few” matches. “We are not hiding our mistakes or the mistakes of the referees on the field of play,” Garcia-Aranda said in a robust defense of FIFA's refereeing program. An orange tram was riding around Amsterdam and the Defense Ministry announced that two F-16 fighter jets, including one painted orange, will escort the team's plane home once it reaches Dutch air space Monday. Germany had gone ahead in the 19th minute with Thomas Mueller's fifth goal of the tournament but Uruguay hit back nine minutes later through Edinson Cavani. The Uruguayans briefly snatched the lead through striker Diego Forlan, with his fifth goal at these Finals, in the 51st but fullback Marcell Jansen equalized five minutes later. Khedira then popped up with the winner but Uruguay went agonizingly close with the last kick of the game when Forlan's curling freekick from 20 meters rattled the crossbar. The Germans made four changes to the side that lost to Spain in the semifinals and showed touches of the slick style that saw them trounce England and Argentina in the knockout stages. Germany coach Joachim Loew, his voice still hoarse from the flu, said that his team was going home “with a very good feeling.” “We achieved more than we perhaps expected,” Loew said. “I don't think it's too much vanity to think that if we improve a little we can aspire to certain prominence in future international tournaments,” Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez said.
