Voller celebrates with Oliver Kahn. (Allsport)

By David Anderson, PA Sport, Seoul

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Rudi Voller admits he can still scarcely believe that Germany have made it to the World Cup Final.

Voller is as surprised as anyone that Germany have won through to a record seventh final considering all the problems he has had to deal with over the last 10 months.

First there was the 5-1 mauling by England, then having to face Ukraine in the play-offs and finally losing the likes of Sebastian Deisler, Mehmet Scholl and Jens Nowotny through injury.

When the tournament started he had feared Germany might not reach the last 16, let alone Sunday's final in Yokohama.

"I'm surprised and if you had said to me four weeks ago that this would happen or at half-time in the match against Cameroon when we were down to 10 men, I would have been even more surprised," said the Germany coach.

"We had a very difficult qualifying group to get here and I don't just mean England but the other opponents in the group.

"There was the famous 5-1 defeat to England and then having to beat Ukraine and it was tough.

"There was the problem of all the injuries and the preparations were not made easy with Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund playing an awful lot of matches in the European cup competitions.

"I also thought we might run the risk of not surviving the group stage with Ireland and Cameroon and they were two very strong teams.

"There's been a lot of pressure along the way and it certainly hasn't been easy going.

"But we did it and I'm very happy to be in the final, especially because it's so unexpected."

Voller feels German's 1-0 second-round win over Paraguay was the catalyst for their march to Yokohama.

"After the Paraguay game the self-confidence grew," he said.

"We thought we might be able to do something and we have really grabbed this opportunity with both hands."

The key to Germany's success has been their defence and Ireland's Robbie Keane remains the only player to have scored past goalkeeper Oliver Kahn in six matches.

Again this is a pleasant surprise for Voller, who was forced to field an untried defence because of injuries.

In addition to Nowotny, he also lost Christian Worns and Marko Rehmer, although the latter has recovered and has been on the bench in recent games.

Voller had to reorganise his defence and 21-year-old Christoph Metzelder, who had only won six caps before the World Cup, has proved to be one of the finds of the tournament.

"It's phenomenal that our defence has been one of the most stable elements considering all the injuries we've had," he said.

"We lost almost an entire defence in Nowotny, Rehmer and Worns. Rehmer's back now, but he's still not 100%.

"So we were forced to play a makeshift selection and what I thought was a stop-gap has been one of the revelations of the tournament."