Germany’s national team boss Joachim Loew was presented with the most prestigious award for any coach during a calendar year – FIFA World Coach of the Year – for his ability to lead Germany to World Cup success in Brazil.

Germany became the first team from Europe to win a major tournament in South America. They managed to get some impressive results along the way, but the 7-1 thrashing of Brazil still stands out from the crowd.Loew said after emerging successful that he expected Germany to dominate the international stage for at least 10 more years since they had a very young squad.

The 54-year-old’s position as the national team boss was under threat going into the World Cup since Germany had some poor results leading up to the tournament. Further, Loew was starting to get the image as a nearly man after he had led Germany close to several trophies without actually winning any. This all changed at the World Cup with the former assistant manager leading the national team to their first World Cup title in almost 30 years. A 1-0 win over Argentina was enough to presentLoew with this prestigious award ahead of the likes of Diego Simeone and Carlo Ancelotti – two managers who had a very successful 2014.

“Receiving this award after such a successful year is a huge honour for me. It’s like the icing on the cake after the World Cup. Becoming a world champion is obviously the ultimate achievement and it can’t be topped. It’s been our target for many long years. It was the result of long, hard hours of work and a number of good decisions by the association. And it was obviously also a product of our structures and the excellent development programmes in Germany. The immense challenge is to follow up the World Cup triumph,” said Loew.