However, the piece of paper played a part because Lehmann took his time and then stared at him, nodding his head as if he knew what to do."Leading up to that game, Germany had been struggling against fellow world football powerhouses, losing ten such games since 2000 and drawing another six. Perhaps this is what prompted Oliver Kahn's pre match remark that, "We have a very favourable track record in shoot outs. We can go through without winning."Either way, Lehmann's preparation and mind games bore fruit and he kept out Cambiasso's strike.
In the aftermath, Germany were able to celebrate being Germany in a way they had not been able to for some 60 years. All of this is reason enough to make it "highly interesting", in Hoffmann's words, for "a museum that is not about football but about the history of the Federal Republic of Germany" to exhibit what might seem to be nothing more than a simple piece of paper. Aime Jacquet's coaching career drew to a dream close on 12 July 1998, as the final whistle blew on France's FIFA World Cup victory against Brazil.