Crowded on the terraces of the Marienplatz, drinking beer like Bavarians in the heat of the ecstatic pulse of the bagpipes, thousands of Scots celebrate their brotherhood in front of the Munich town hall, day and night since Wednesday. It is the most eloquent manifestation that a European football championship is coming because the local population seems more concerned with other things. This is how it happened until yesterday under a radiant sun and the great newspaper of Bavaria, the Sueddeutsche Zeitunghe pointed out bitterly: “No Scotland, no Party”. Without Scotland there is no party on the eve of the Allianz Arena hosting, as in the 2006 World Cup, the opening match of another major sporting event in Germany. Eighteen years later, Germany, Europe and football inspire more nostalgia than hope.
“The national team must unite regardless of skin color, religion or culture, whether you are rich or poor,” said Philipp Lahm, the president of the Euro organizing committee, yesterday, sitting in a beer hall in Münchner Freiheit with a group of journalists and members of non-governmental organizations concerned about the wave of frustration and xenophobia that threatens to hit the country, and which has the far-right Initiative for Germany party as a spur after obtaining 16% of the votes in the elections to the European Parliament. “My son learns it on his soccer team: the important thing is to play together,” said the former Bayern player. “This is an example that we Germans and Europeans can now transfer through our national teams. “This Euro Cup is an opportunity to tell the world what we really are.”
Principles that seemed like platitudes are questioned in the face of surveys such as the one promoted by the ARD network, with broadcasting rights for the championship. This medium, linked to the extreme right, published the result of a survey that asked participants if they wanted the German team to have more white players. A fifth answered yes. Xenophobia, a post-war taboo, is more than a ghost in a community that has been striving to bury Nazism for almost a century. “I was shocked that the survey was done and it seemed aberrant that people responded,” said Julian Nagelsmann, the coach, who has called into his ranks black players like Rüdiger, mulattoes like Musiala, or descendants of Turkish emigrants like Gündogan, to undertake a double fight.
On the one hand, Germany has before it the mission of recovering the sporting greatness lost in the last decade; On the other hand, it aims to bring together a population divided by economic decline, the war in Ukraine, and the perception that immigrants are a danger in an alarming geopolitical concert. The fear of acts of Russian sabotage and the arrest of an alleged sympathizer of the jihadist Islamic State when he tried to enlist as a volunteer in the Euro Cup add fuel to the explosive atmosphere.
Germany and France join forces in an unprecedented joint operation. “We have been in close contact with security agencies,” Lahm said, “and international collaboration has been essential to process information. Safety is our number one priority. We are prepared”.
Nagelsmann says the same. “We are prepared”. He affirms this after verifying that they were not, and only six months have passed since then. The credibility of the German selectors has been a shack in a hurricane since Löw was eliminated in the round of 16 in the 2018 World Cup and Flick fell in the same round in 2022. Captive of his usual eloquence, successor Nagelsmann acknowledged that he called Kroos in November , after losing 2-3 in Berlin against Turkey with the ineffable Kimmich in midfield, reproducing the pattern that led to the team’s ruin during the last World Cup. “In November my first approach began to convince Kroos to return,” said the coach.
“We were later looking at the next steps and we talked several times about what and how I could contribute to the national team until, in the end, at one point he told me: “Yes, I want to be part of this. Let’s rock.”
With Kimmich recycled at right back and Kroos in tune with Gündogan in midfield, asking for all the balls without fear and offering to make the first pass, Germany has found stability and has once again looked like a competitive team. “My game is very similar to Toni’s,” Gündogan said yesterday, seemingly composed despite the mounting pressure. “It’s a pleasure to play with him. His passes seem simple, but they give meaning to the game.” Gündogan stood up to critics who for years have accused Kroos of abusing horizontal passes. This faction coined a nickname: Querpass Toni, which means something like Toni Horizontal Pass.
“Math exam”
The playoff of Kroos, determined to retire in this tournament at the age of 34, expresses the crisis of the German youth academy, previously an inexhaustible producer of dynamic and ingenious midfielders. The lack of talent first disoriented the team and then gripped it, until Nagelsmann called Madrid asking for help. “We are nervous like before taking a math test,” the coach acknowledged. “We want atmosphere. I want a loud stadium. We need it”.
Nagelsmann knows it, the politicians know it, and anyone who goes through the peripheral fields knows it. There is nothing in German popular culture capable of inflaming people like football. Tim Frohwein, former player responsible for Poject Treffpunkt and Fussball Mikrokosmos, two initiatives to promote and harness the energy of grassroots football, pointed out a handful of facts yesterday: “A million people gather every weekend in Bavaria alone around soccer teams. amateur football. This is the most popular sport in Germany, with 2.3 million practitioners and 1.3 million matches per year.”
The impact of the team is easily understood in a country waiting for the Euro Cup. Gündogan said it excitedly: “For me, being captain means incredibly much. “This team hopes to represent the German people with pride.”
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