‘Beckenbus’ and pink kits all well and good... but only winning will save Germany
WHAT will save hosts Germany at this summer’s Euros? Will it be the memory of Franz Beckenbauer, will it be their pink-topurple inclusivity adidas second strip, or will it be Toni Kroos?
Germany need saving. Group-stage elimination in the last two World Cups came between a last-16 exit against England at the Euros. They sacked their coach for the first time ever last September when they fired Hansi Flick, and his replacement Julian Nagelsmann goes into tonight’s meeting with France off the back of two defeats.
Invoking the spirit of their greatest player is one way to instil some of the old invincibility back into the team. Nagelsmann’s players travelled to training this week in a team bus emblazoned with the image of Beckenbauer.
‘Thank you, Franz,’ was written large on the side of the bus alongside his picture, as the side prepare for their first game since Beckenbauer’s death.
It may inspire some but it also sets the bar dauntingly high. After winning the World Cup on home soil as a player in 1974, he won it as a manager in 1990. Current coach Nagelsmann has four games left to hone his best XI, and six new call-ups in his latest squad suggests he isn’t even close.
There’s a home friendly with the Netherlands on Tuesday, and two more against Ukraine and Greece, before their tournament opener against Scotland on June 14, and then Hungary and Switzerland. A third group-stage exit in six years is unthinkable.
So what of the pink-to-purple second shirts that the German Football Association (DFB) says on its website represents ‘the new generation of German football fans and the diversity of the country’.
If the nod to Beckenbauer is a call to turn back the clock, this is an attempt at a great leap forward. The German people have fallen out of love with the team in recent tournaments, the second shirt is an attempt to freshen the relationship up.
Not everyone likes it: ‘Nothing learned from the Qatar fiasco?’ headlined the Berliner Zeitung, referencing the famous hands over the mouths team photo from the German players when they were banned from wearing One Love armbands.
‘The DFB wants to represent a diverse society but, after the gesture at the World Cup, the national team should not be sending political signals again,’ it went on.
The German FA knew there would be dissent. In one promotional video released with the shirt this week Thomas Muller is told by an imaginary social media complainer: ‘That’s no shirt for a legend’. He responds: ‘I’ll ask one’ and shouts across to Rudi Voller who retorts: ‘I think it is’. Then another critic writes: ‘Barbie pink: what’s that supposed to mean? Is it a woman’s shirt? And talented young female German player Jule Brand responds: ‘Well, it doesn’t look like eight European Championship titles to me yet.’ It’s a reference to the number of times the women’s team have won the Euros.
They have also left the traditional home jersey relatively untouched. ‘typisch Deutsch’ (Typical German) says a young fan when she sees it, in another of adidas’ promotional videos. All of which brings us to Kroos.
When asked what that deliberately debate-provoking slogan meant to him this week, he said: ‘Well, before, “Typical German” meant winning football matches.’ The comment was as incisive as one of his passes.
The only thing that will bring the German people together behind the team is success on the pitch and Kroos can be the catalyst for that.
He quit international football after that 2-0 defeat by England at the last Euros but the 34-year-old returns for his 106th cap tonight. There is talent in this German side and if he can complement the talented Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz, his comeback will have been a masterstroke.
‘These exceptional players are meant to make the game fun but we have to put them in positions on the pitch where they can bring us joy and that’s my job,’ he said this week.
Operation Save Germany begins tonight. Turning up to games in the ‘Beckenbus’ or donning an inclusivity shirt are attempts at bringing together the past and the future. But nothing inspires and unites like victory and Kroos will be key to Germany delivering that.