<![CDATA[I have a Honduran coworker who is passionate about soccer. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about that plain fact: Hondurans, like pretty much everybody else on the planet, are wild about the game. What sets her apart, and what has eternally endeared her to me, is the object of her passion. She loves the German national team, and has since she was a young girl (she’s middle aged now).
She likes the Honduran team, sure, but they don’t excite her. She’s happy for them kind of like you might be happy for a nephew who has won a fifth grade spelling bee. (They’ve qualified for the Cup and are in Group E, along with Switzerland, Ecuador, and France. I can feel her boredom with them as I write this).
She’s ambivalent about her adopted country’s team. Well, “ambivalent” is too soft a word. She is quite eager for Germany to tear the US apart. Every time she meets me in the hallway she shouts, “Go Germany!”
When at one point I admitted to her that I admired the German team, and in fact really loved some of their players, she inquired as to why I didn’t just go ahead and root for them. She was a little puzzled that the passion that came to her so easily, at such an early age, didn’t naturally spring up in me, too. She is convinced that they’re going to win the whole thing.
Why, exactly, Germany became the team of her heart is a little mysterious. It appears to me to be two things. When asked point blank why she loves them, she told me that it was because they were heartless. They play the game with their minds: they’re cool-headed and ruthless, and she loves this. She delivered her lines with a straight face. It was pretty hilarious, but she’s stuck to her guns, and this is what she feels. She senses something icy in their aesthetic, in their mindset, and she digs it.
The second thing which has bound her to Germany is her family, but it’s not a direct connection. Her mother and her brother are both huge fans of Brazil. (On the evidence of her family, an admittedly small sample size, the Honduran National Team could really use some more native love). Apparently, she really gets into it with her mom in soccer arguments – they’ve thrown phones at each other in anger over Brazil vs. Deutschland arguments. I’m sure that this fundamental opposition in her family has only drawn closer to her pale, dreamy Germans.
National soccer are avatars of their people, they’re distillations of collective ethos, of shared glory and common failure. At least, that’s the most entertaining and widespread way of interpreting them. The classic joy of a World Cup is rooted in this kind of short hand: it’s a war of cultures in sporting form. Under the nationalism, though, there’s always the illicit thrill of supporting a team not your own. Even of supporting your enemies! The tournament’s architecture feeds these underground currents. Once your country is knocked out, do you stop watching? No, you pick new favorites (if, in fact, your country was your favorite in the first place). You are meant to be promiscuous, it whispers in your ear. Choose someone new: this is the point.
And so, on to Germany. They’re absurdly good. The best German team in a long time, with a midfield stocked in greatness. I happen to disagree with my coworker on the matter of heart, as I feel that this team isn’t nearly as mechanical and grindingly, unamusingly efficient as a few of its predecessors. They have in their ranks great artists like Mesut Özil, idiosyncratic attackers like Thomas Müller, and young flair players like Mario Gotze. To top it off, their creative play is grounded in a strong, smart defense, with Manuel Neuer, one of the best keepers in the world, at its heart.
Key players
Philipp Lahm: Right back is an underappreciated position, one which popular belief used to have as the place for your least talented player. Lahm is the best right back in the world, and captain of both Bayern Munich and the national team. Pep Guardiola described him as the most intelligent player he’s ever worked with, and promptly began playing him as a deep lying central midfielder. Joachim Loew, the national team coach, is more likely to keep him as a fullback, though Lahm has now stated he prefers midfield.
Mesut Özil: Özil is renowned for his intuitive understanding of space and his perfectly weighted passing. He’s an understated player whose brilliance is often most pronounced when he’s not on the ball: he drifts into unexpected spaces, unsettling the other team and creating possibility for his own. With his range of passing, his brilliant first touch, and ability to read play, he can accelerate attacks and make difficult situations cohesive and dangerous.
Sami Khedira: Khedira is a defensive midfielder for Real Madrid. He’s also been injured and hasn’t played for months, but that didn’t stop Loew from choosing him for his preliminary 30-man squad (coaches can choose 30, but have to winnow it to 23 by the tournament). Khedira is an excellent, strong player, and along with those attributes he’s also a good peacemaker. The German starting eleven, you see, is largely composed of players from archrivals Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Loew hopes to use Khedira’s leadership to balance the squad and keep tempers cool. If he’s able to be fit in time, his influence could be very important.
Storylines
This is a golden generation of German players. They have a lot of hope invested in them, and the time is ripe to make good on all their youthful promise. The 2012 Euros were a missed chance, and if they underperform now, it might begin to become difficult to recover. Anything short of reaching the semifinals would be a disappointment, and while making the final is always very difficult, they have as good a shot as anyone: they’re among the elite, rivaled on paper only by Spain, Brazil, and Argentina.
The division between the Bayern and Dortmund players could be interesting; it was largely kept under wraps during the Euros, but the relationship between the clubs has soured in the intervening years, as Bayern has bullied its less affluent rival. The Spanish team of 2010 famously joined Barcelona and Real players, and Germany will be hoping for something similar, albeit less dramatic politically.
The rise of German soccer, of the Bundesliga and its exports like Özil, has been one of the main global soccer stories of the past few years. They’ll be desperate to make it count in Brazil.]]>
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