My three wishes for the World Cup championship match:

1. Someone scores in the first 90 minutes.

2. Argentina scores the goal.

3. Lionel Messi scores the goal, for Argentina.

A big 0-for-three.

Two topics, out of “Germany 1, Argentina 0” — in 120 minutes:

–Was Messi hurt, or exhausted? Or both?

Certainly he missed a golden opportunity to take his reputation up another few notches, a strange “validation” moment for a guy who has done everything on the club level. The chatter before the match held that if the four-time world player of the year wanted to be in the same discussion as Pele and Diego Maradona (and we assume he would; he has never addressed the topic), he needed a World Cup victory.  He just missed, and he will be 31 in four years. That may have been his one significant opportunity.

Argentina had some chances, but they never got a shot on frame. Manuel Neuer, Germany’s goalkeeper, never was asked to make a save.

Messi certainly looked used up, especially after a few bursts in the first half, and perhaps not quite healthy. After he missed that chance early in the second half, he could be seen reaching for his right hamstring.

Much of the match, he just walked around near midfield. The good news was, the Germans were the first team to allow him to wander without an escort or three. The bad news? The Germans let him alone when they had the ball because they intended to score. Because they were certain they were better. And they were.

Messi was done by the 60th minute, and Argentina pretty much was, too. They tried to fight through the 30 extra minutes, to get to a shootout and take their chances there, but the German edge in fitness — or energy, anyway — became increasingly apparent, and the substitute Mario Gotze scored the game-winner in the 113th minute.

–How good are the Germans? Pretty good. Very good. And not everyone has tumbled yet to the fact that the new champions have a young team. The average age of their 23-man roster was 26. And that included the 36-year-old Miroslav Klose. Gotze is 22. Andre Schurrle is 23. Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos are 24. Mats Hummels, Mesut Ozil and Jerome Boateng are 25. Barring something drastic, everyone who mattered, in Brazil, will be back in four years.

They could be excused for doing a variation on the LeBron James boast when he joined the Miami Heat, on the subject of how many major championships (World Cup, European Cup) this core group could win. “Not one, not two, not three …” That is, they may pick up just where Spain left off, and Spain won the previous three major titles (2010 World Cup, 2008, 2012 Euros).

One of our correspondents already has weighed in on the topic of the potential power play by the Germans, going forward.

So, there goes the World Cup. The next will be in Russia in 2018, which is a long time, even for an old person.

The World Cup is a huge task to cover, in depth, and exhausting. We at The National devoted at least one page — and usually more like nine — to the World Cup from May 25 through tomorrow’s paper. More than seven weeks, that is.

But it is fun, and this one was quite fun, especially through the group stage, when all sorts of interesting things happened. The knockout rounds … not so whimsical. Actually, pretty much formful straight through, aside from “Germany 7, Brazil 1”, which soccer fans (and Brazil in particular) will be talking about for years.

I hoped Argentina would win, but I never thought they would.