Lukas Podolski dedicated Germany’s 4-0 World Cup thrashing of Portugal to countryman Michael Schumacher, after the news emerged that the Formula 1 legend has emerged from a five and a half month medically induced coma.

Substitute striker Podolski declared after the match, “He’s a good friend, a good guy and he’s also crazy about football. Maybe he watched the game or he knew about the result.”

Schumacher had been in a coma after a skiing accident in the French Alps on 29 December, the 45 year old being treated in ICU at Grenoble Hospital..

The seven-time world champion is now at a Swiss hospital in Lausanne, closer to his family’s home and out of the coma.

BBC reports that F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, world champion in 2008 and the German’s replacement in the Mercedes team, said it was “amazing” to hear of Schumacher’s progress.