16 Jul 2014

Berlin parties as Cup winners return

11:38 am on 16 July 2014

The World Cup-winning German football team have been welcomed home by hundreds of thousands of flag-waving fans wearing the national colours and basking in the nation's fourth World Cup victory.

A roar went up from the crowd when the team's plane circled overhead, and the fans counted down from 10 to its touchdown on the tarmac.

Nearly half a million revellers packed Berlin's "fan mile", a 1.3-kilometre stretch of road leading to the iconic Brandenburg Gate, for a massive party.

The crowds chanted the names of the 22 year old goal-scoring hero Mario Goetze and Bastian Schweinsteiger, who took battering during the final and ended up with a bloody cut under his eye.

The success of the national team since 2006, when Germany hosted the World Cup, is widely seen as having helped Germans take greater pride in their nationality, which their history had previously made them uncomfortable about displaying.