Germany 0-2 France (3)

But for once Joachim Low’s team revealed themselves to be mortal. There is, it appears, no flawless formula in the German DNA.

The problem here was that they couldn’t score. To compound that, they gifted France two goals, and, with them, a place in the final against Portugal.

This, generally, is not what the Germans do. Usually, they do what England never can. They over-achieve, they maximise and move inexorably forwards even when it seems as though they cannot.

So this was a reversal and, as such, a night to remember across Europe and not only in France.

We do not begrudge the hosts. Didier Deschamps’ team have performed in this tournament under considerable pressure.

Their country has suffered over the last eight months and this French team have known all along that the opportunity to brighten the mood a little has been theirs. That is some weight to carry.

They are not the best French team we have ever seen. They are not the best team to compete at Euro 2016.

But they have tried to play on the front foot and have tried to play bravely and their little forward Antoine Griezmann has been a wonderful embodiment of that.

What a lovely and watchable player the 25-year-old has proved to be.

This is a young forward whose club season ended dismally as he missed a penalty in Atletico Madrid’s Champions League defeat against city rivals Real.

Yet he has set about this tournament with a hunger and an ambition that has set the tone of a team that has grown slowly into the rhythm of this festival.

If Dimitri Payet set France rolling early on, Griezmann has taken the baton now.

His goals rescued France amid nerves and uncertainty against the Republic of Ireland in the last 16 in Lyon and his two strikes wrestled this game away from the Germans after almost 45 minutes that had seen the world champions outplay their opponents from front to back.

France supporters celebrate wildly in the stands as Dimitri Payet, Evra, Griezmann and Blaise Matuidi revel in their opening goal

The Atletico Madrid forward added a second for the hosts with 18 minutes left of the game, stabbing home from close range

Low and his players will argue all the way home about the penalty decision that gave France the edge in the death throes of the opening period. Certainly, it was a close call and it irreversibly changed the flow of the match.

There is no doubt about that and replays suggest justice was done.

Though Bastian Schweinsteiger would not agree, he did give referee Nicola Rizzoli a decision to make when he showed a leading arm while jumping clumsily with Patrice Evra at a corner and when the Italian official came down on the side of the blue appeals, possibly on the advice of an assistant, Griezmann stepped forward to bury his penalty emphatically past Manuel Neuer.

It really was a huge moment in this tournament. France had started well and Griezmann could have scored in only the sixth minute as he played a double one-two with Blaise Matuidi — maybe we call that a 1-2-3-4 — before working Neuer low to the goalkeeper’s left.

After that, however, the German midfield took over and virtually the next 40 minutes of the game was played to the beat of their drum.

Deschamps had set £100million man Paul Pogba and Matuidi at the base of his midfield and left Leicester’s N’Golo Kante on the bench.

But it was Schweinsteiger, Mesut Ozil and the brilliant Toni Kroos who ran the game, and had the strangely out of sorts Thomas Muller taken an early chance then we would no doubt be telling a different story on Friday morning.