LONDON — A new nation won the World Cup. It was the first victory for a unified Germany, or a reunified Germany if you prefer. That country was more than a generation in the making. Germans do not believe in quick fixesFormal reunification occurred on Oct. 3, 1990, a few months after the previous 1-0 German victory over Argentina in a World Cup final, an ugly affair in Rome. But it has taken a quarter-century, and untold billions, to knit the post-Cold War nation together. When I lived in Berlin between 1998 and 2001, it was not just the countless cranes hovering over the city that told of a work in progress. It was the different mind-sets of Ossi and Wessi, Easterners and Westerners eyeing each other with resentment.

No matter, Germany had decided. It would pay the price to achieve reunification. It would work on the problem. It would move in the appointed direction, come what may.

This fine World Cup winning team was also the fruit of long-term planning. Over the past dozen years, the Deutscher Fussball-Bund (DFB), or German Football Association, has invested a fortune in new facilities, identifying youthful talent, nurturing that talent and ushering it to the national level. Two young players who emerged from that system, André Schürrle of Chelsea and Mario Götze of Bayern Munich, combined to conjure the beautiful goal that clinched victory.

It had been preceded by the 7-1 demolition of the hosts, Brazil, in the semi-final. Seldom has a soccer match so resembled an execution. It was not only Germans who felt the need to look away. Domination is not the modern German way. Brazilian agony was too explicit not to cringe.

BBC commentators could not resist the clichés. Germany was “clinical.” It was “efficient.” People tweeted, “Don’t mention the score.” With Germany there is always something unmentionable that rhymes with war. It is not easy to be German. But in that difficulty, as this team suggested, there lie strengths. Everything about this team, from its talent to its ethics, was admirable. The right team does not always win. In this case it did.

Germany, I said, does not believe in quick fixes. It is worth repeating because it is an idea that sets the country apart in an age where a quick killing, tomorrow’s share price, instant gratification and short-termism are the norm. Germans on the whole think what the rest of the world builds is flimsy. Anyone who has felt the weight of a German window, or the satisfying hermetic clunk of one closing, knows they have a point. The German time frame is longer.

Why Germany differs in this may be debated. Having plumbed the depths of destruction and evil, having understood the depravity into which a “civilized” country may descend, Germany had to rebuild from the “Stunde Null,” or “Zero Hour,” of 1945. It had to hoist itself up step by step; and it had to build into its reconstituted self the guarantees that ensured no relapse was possible. This took planning. It took persistence. It involved prudence. Even before all this the first German unity of 1871 came only after centuries of strife at the European crossroads. Geborgenheit is an untranslatable German word but no less important for that. It means roughly warmth, home, trust and security, everything that is so precious in part because it may go up in smoke.

Perhaps German success is the result of the immensity of past German failure. I think that has something to do with it, even a lot. Whatever its roots, German success is important and instructive.

If you talk to business leaders of the German Mittelstand, the small and medium-sized companies at the heart of the country’s economy, you are transported to another world. You sit in stark boardrooms, so devoid of indulgence they resemble classrooms, with unassuming people leading billion-dollar companies, and they speak of loyalty, 10-year plans, prudence and quality. If one word induces a look of horror, it is debt. The notion of making money with money, of financial engineering rather than engineering itself, is alien.

Joachim Löw, the German coach, spoke before the final of the careful building of his youthful side: “We can play on top of the world for a good few years yet, with some young players coming in to reinforce the team.” Inevitably, the idea of Germany “on top of the world” for a long time conjured up images the phrase would not evoke for another country. Even a victory dance by members of the German team turned into a national debate because it was seen by some as unseemly mocking of the gaucho Argentine. The president of the DFB apologized.

Germany is now soccer’s “Weltmeister,” a composite word composed of “world” and “master.” It deserves the honor. Its society has much to teach others. But restraint will be its watchword.