Sport
The “undefeatable” team’s campaign for a fifth trophy ended in ignominy in an empty goalmouth.
The “undefeatable” team’s campaign for a fifth trophy ended in ignominy in an empty goalmouth.
Reflecting on a heart-breaking semifinal loss to Germany at the 1990 Fifa World Cup, England striker Gary Lineker said, “Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.” His remark stuck in the collective footballing imagination because it spoke to the apparent inevitability of Germany getting through to the business end of major tournaments. Footballing dynasties come and go, nations’ fortunes wax and wane but you could bet your house on the Germans being there or thereabouts. (They’ve made the final of seven of the last 13 World Cups.)
The law got a good airing in the build-up to the current tournament in Russia. After all, the Germans were defending champions – who could forget their 7-1 semi-final dismemberment of hosts Brazil four years ago? – and a number of the class of 2014 were back. There was a resigned expectation that the Germans would be in the finals mix because, well, they always are.
But after almost three decades of pertinence, the law had to be revised twice in a matter of days. After losing to Mexico, Germany needed a last-minute goal in their pool game against Sweden to stay in the tournament. Lineker, now a broadcaster, tweeted, “Football is a simple game: 22 men chase the ball for 82 minutes and the Germans get a player sent off so 21 men chase the ball for 13 minutes and, at the end, the Germans somehow win.”
The self-belief and refusal to concede that gave rise to the law in the first place was much in evidence and added to the air of inevitability around the German campaign. Then came the seismic shock: Germany lost to South Korea, thereby failing to qualify from the group stage for the first time since 1938. Henceforth the question, “What’s wrong with this picture?” will accompany a screenshot of Son Heung-min nudging the ball into a German goal conspicuously devoid of a goalkeeper. Keeper Manuel Neuer had left his post and ventured upfield to bolster his team’s toothless attack, a gambit predicated on the over-optimistic assumption that Germany would retain possession for the duration, and one that Don Quixote himself would have labelled quixotic.
Lineker went back to the drafting board: “Football is a simple game: 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the Germans no longer always win. Previous version is confined [sic] to history.”
It was a reminder that sport can engender national unity, but it can also divide.
According to the headlinewriters back home, the early and ignominious exit was a national catastrophe. It was certainly a reminder that, although sport can engender national unity, or at least create an impression of it, it can also divide. The anti-immigration right pointed the finger at two players of Turkish descent, Mesut Özil and Ilkay Gündoğan, claiming they weren’t fully committed to the cause because of divided loyalties.
(The pair had given something of a hostage to fortune by posing smilingly before the tournament with Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – Gündoğan described Erdoğan as “my president”. The gesture offended both political camps: leftists questioned the appropriateness of national representatives endorsing an authoritarian; rightists portrayed it as further proof that immigrants and their offspring are more attached to their country of origin than their country of adoption.)
This latter perception seems to have gained traction in footballing circles. 1990 World Cup-winning captain Lothar Matthäus said, “I often have the feeling that Özil doesn’t feel comfortable in the [German] shirt, that he’s not free and it’s almost as if he doesn’t want to play.”
Mind you, Matthäus himself is an equivocal figure. Despite being widely regarded as second only to Franz “Der Kaiser” Beckenbauer in Germany’s footballing pantheon, he has never secured a management job in the Bundesliga, the equivalent of England’s Premier League.
That’s partly because his record in management, which has included stints in charge of the Hungarian and Bulgarian national teams, is mixed at best, and partly because his hectic private life has made him something of a tabloid fixture and national embarrassment. He has been married five times, and one of his wives was the almost-mandatory Ukrainian model. He was 47, she was 21; they met at Oktoberfest, got hitched in Las Vegas and went their separate ways little more than a year later.