Preview: In this unofficial football focus's series Euro 2008 special, the author looks back at how the road to the final came about. More muses included from someone who wants to believe the German national team can make it in the end (because she supports them since two years ago).
I admitted I was among the many who initially secretly scorned at the German national team using the theme of a 'Mountain Tour' for their Euro 2008 campaign. Even as someone being a supporter of the German national team, kind of tacky for me. What made it tacky for me was that I remembered watching a TV advert showing the coach and the national team as mountaineers attempting to scale Austria and Switzerland's peaks.
After all, the Alps lie in between Euro 2008 co-hosts Austria and Switzerland (it also borders Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia, Liechtenstein as well). I cannot say I don't know...even all the more back then in one of my Secondary Two's Geography lessons, one of the chapters in the textbook was on mountains. On one hand, viewing the TV advert made me cringe and on the other, made me remembered those Geography classes that mountain ranges are more than just the Alps.
Those school days are long gone. But memories still remained (like how I wanted to study Geography after the Streaming given I was being chosen to study History for my O Levels...back then when the exam results came out, it's just that there was only a difference of a few marks between my Geography and History papers but at the end of it, a blessing in disguise). My mother was saying the other day that I always write a lot. It has already been developed since the days of becoming a History student. Or hang on, maybe it all began since primary school of writing essays (from an essay consisting of a few sentences in Primary One to a full-length one in secondary school with my 'crowning glory' when in Secondary Four, my English teacher reading my essay aloud...and it was actually part of the mid-year exams). While back then it's debating on historical events and have to write it out in my History paper, this time round...arguing and debating and musing about Euro 2008.
There are times I feel so frustrated I wanted to cry. There are times I just want to laugh and smile and giggle. There are times I feel like tearing my hair. Yes, those also apply when becoming a supporter of the German national team (it does not restricted to supporting England). I remembered about reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (I read it six years ago on a family holiday trip to Malaysia) but then realising in the end, it's not the kind of novel for me. I mentioned that because, that is how AFP described the German national team's road to the final (Germany have shown two different faces at Euro 2008 - much like the character from Robert Louis Stevenson's famous 1886 novel. At times they have produced some good football, only later to turn in bad performances.). Sometimes it's too easy to forget that, this is Germany coach Joachim Loew's first major tournament in charge since he took over from Juergen Klinsmann two years ago. Every step of the way is a learning experience for the 48-year-old who only began his coaching career 14 years ago.
I am equally guilty of forgetting it at times that this is Loew's maiden tournament as a coach. Loew's former club coaching sojourns don't always last long at each club he is at but as I had learned since he became the head coach of the German national team, each experiences he had in his overseas sojourn in Austria, Switzerland and Turkey (other than in his native Germany) had remained with him for life. When 'Jogi' remembered back the days when he was in Turkey ahead of the semi-final against the country where he spent his early days of coaching, it almost moved me to tears. But I have a problem - This (look at the No.1). The Straits Times today have an article (which as usual, didn't stating where it get the article from...not like the TODAY paper where it will say where the original article is from at the end of the report) on the strange occurences whenever Loew is on the touchline. Old news for me. *pretend to yawn*
But if anyone want some laughs, this one is all about Loew's reactions on the touchline in the semi-final match against Turkey (commentary is in Japanese). Yes, a compilation just on a coach's reactions in a match. The softer side of 'Jogi' was shown after the match is over (makes me want to go - aww!). And if there is anything in Euro 2008 but has nothing to do with football is something I will remember for life, is this - I was just watching the highlights of the Germany-Poland match and she commented that Germany coach Joachim Loew is...handsome. Saying it in Mandarin actually. Given her comment came seconds after Loew was being shown on the TV, I asked her if she was referring to the coach. She confirmed it. Reuters's look at both the Germany and Spain coaches ahead of the final not only include how Loew and Luis Aragones approach situations...also what they always wear. Round one, coaches' attire...Germany win hands down (and I am not saying it as a Germany supporter).
Turning to Spain now. Perennial underachievers? A quarter-final team? Many had pointed them to be favourites in this tournament because of the wealth of talent in the squad. But will the squad choke it again like they always did in the past is something holding many back. I did revealed in my post-match reactions and thoughts of the Russia-Spain semi-final match that even before the start of the tournament, Spain has always been my sentimental favourite in the final (and this is someone who supports Germany). Now to think of it...damn it. Why I pick Spain then?
What set this class of 2008 apart from its predecessors? Everyone is part of the squad (even the ones who are on the bench). No one is bigger than the rest. There were questions coming into this tournament as to why coach Luis Aragones didn't want to pick Real Madrid captain Raul (who was having a great season at his club and has always being regarded as one of Spain's best footballers in recent times) and Aragones is heavily being criticised for it (he famously said that Spain never won anything under Raul...but then again, since missing out on the 1984 European Championship title to favourites France, the 1964 trophy was the only major trophy to date for the national team). But then the man whom they nicknamed 'Big Boots' (Zapatones in Spanish) in his playing days (he was known as a free kick specialist then) and later on as 'The Wise Man from Hortaleza' (Hortaleza is his hometown) in his coaching days when he was coaching Atletico Madrid, Luis Aragones is now having the last laugh. With people talking about David Villa these days, Raul is almost being casted aside.
So...no prizes for guessing who could be probably wanting to tell his critics - 'I told you so'. Wily old man Luis Aragones has seen it all in football. He will be 70 in July and is also the most oldest coach in this tournament. He does know a thing or two about the Germans given he encountered them in his playing days with Atletico Madrid as he scored the equaliser which led to a 1-1 draw with Bayern Munich as Atlético held Bayern in the then-European Champions Cup (predecessor to the Champions League) final in 1974 before losing 4-0 in a replay (back then there was no penalty shootout yet, it was only introduced two years later in the European Championships). Whatever happened back then.
While the English media will always remember Aragones as the person who spouted comments about Thierry Henry (something not very nice actually), other than that, Senor Aragones is old-school when it comes to coaching. Not forgetting the fact that he could be a grandfather to almost everyone on the national team (the players, I mean) as well.
1964. It's the year before Singapore became officially independent. It's the year where the racial riots happened on 21 May (given ever since then, the date is being designated as Racial Harmony Day in schools to remind us that the racial harmony we have now cannot be taken for granted). In football, Inter Milan won the Europe Cup in Vienna. In music, the Beatles's Can't Buy Me Love was number one in Britain (I can even hum a few lines of it). In politics, a black political figure later to become president was sentenced to life imprisonment in South Africa (Nelson Mandela). Apart from what happened in 1964 over here, I got the rest from here in terms of what happened on the same year when Spain won its only major trophy to date in football. A certain Luis Aragones was in his 20s then. That is just how long the trophy drought has lasted for Spanish football in terms for its national team.
For Germany, 1996 was the last time Die Mannschaft ever won something (and the only time they did so far as a united country). That was also the era of The Spice Girls. For me on a personal scale, it's one of the best times for me in primary school (I was in Primary Three then). If there is a reason why reading is among my hobbies, it indirectly went back to the English teacher I had then. I was eight-going on-nine years of age when Germany lifted the trophy at the Wembley. I didn't know until reading it online. 12 years on, it will be less than three more months before I officially become an adult in the Singapore context.
It's like how the journey of Euro 2008 has become. It has its ups and downs. Excitement, tears, anger...etc. Watching the latest UEFA magazine programme on the tournament, whatever the 'Kaiser' Franz Beckbenbauer said about the current German national team's performance in this tournament so far make sense. His hand gestures in terms of Die Mannschaft's fortunes so far simply reminded me only one thing - the volatile stock market.
I suppose I understand why the theme of the German national team's Euro 2008 campaign called 'Mountain Tour'. Team manager Oliver Bierhoff, who was the one who chose the theme, explained this - "A mountain tour is like what we have done here, helping each other and urging each other on, there is a great sense of togetherness and we are all pulling in the right direction." It had been criticised even in the German media back then as well. Well, whatever it may be, the guys are almost there now.
And about the stadium which will be the setting? The Ernst Happel Stadium do have a well, interesting past.
