Soccer players should need little motivation for the World Cup. There is no bigger competition in world soccer.

They are representing their motherland and playing against the best players on the planet. So it's not difficult to feel that in Brazil, it looks like players are exacting revenge on those who they feel wronged them.

Thomas Mueller played like a man possessed against Portugal in Salvador, as he does so often for both the Mannschaft and Bayern Munich.

This time it felt like there was an extra spark to his game and he wanted to get his own back on the Portuguese Real Madrid players whose team dismantled the Bavarians in last season's European Champions League semifinals.

Mueller drew first blood by slotting home a penalty with typical German assuredness that missing was not an option. He then celebrated as he always does, with the look of a man watching the goal on television rather than having just scored it.

Mueller then tried to trick Pepe into actually drawing blood, with his cynical overreaction to a flailing arm from the Portugal and Real Madrid defender. Pepe stayed true to lunatic form and planted his forehead into the side of a still sitting Mueller's face. A straight red followed and then Mueller went to work.

Two more goals in the 4-0 victory were no more than he deserved, even if his playacting antics left a sour taste in the mouth. That Ronaldo was left frustrated and goal-less made the game all the sweeter for Germany's Bayern contingent.

Monday also brought revenge for another Germany and Bayern legend. Juergen Klinsmann's USA team stopped the run of World Cup defeats they have experienced at the hands of Ghana.

A workmanlike, diligent performance was lit up in the first 30 seconds by the renascent Clint Dempsey.

The victory coming in the manner that it did, snatched from the jaws of two points dropped, will have made the result even more enjoyable. That and the final score being 2-1, the same as those reverses in the Germany and South Africa tournaments.

The greatest revenge of all so far has been Oranje. The Netherlands lived up to their tag as soccer's perpetual bridesmaids in the previous World Cup final. They started off in the worst possible way against Spain in their opening game rematch.

After Wesley Sneijder missed a great chance, the Spanish converted a penalty and it looked like more heartache. Then Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie painted the town Orange, aided by Iker Casillas and company.

It won't make up for missing­ out on the World Cup last time, but fans and players alike take great joy in the misfortune of others. If only there was a word for that.