Preview: I have love the England national team all over again which I later realised that it had never really left me all along, so much so to the extent that I did what I thought I would never do three months ago – ‘divorcing’ from the German national team. While the experience taught me a lesson in football loyalty, what was really the ‘trigger’ which made me said that I had enough was what happened in the lead-up to the Germany-England friendly last year and what happened after that. It eventually became a flashpoint in my time as a football fan. What is football really all about? Is it about the action on the pitch, or is it about what happens off the pitch? What constitutes football, really? In the unofficial weekend football series on the continuing series of footballing moments, yours truly looks back at a painful time in her footballing life when she was still supporting the German national team which also came at the same time that she was beginning to support the England squad all over again...
Forget for a moment about footballers who earn a lot, forget for a moment of rich owners owning football clubs, forget for a moment about shady deals in football, and forget for a moment of footballers behaving badly in any matches. For me at one time last year, I was actually on the verge of giving up football altogether. And the reason has nothing to do with what football fans complain about these days. It has to do with disharmony in the German national team which was really heated at one time and it really made threatened me to walk out of the beautiful game.
If people talk about the credibility of Formula One had hit a new low in the wake of the ‘crash-gate’ scandal which has engulfed the Renault team, how about me at one time almost wanting to declare that I don’t want to have anything associating with football in my life anymore due to a team I support having internal problems? That used to be me at one time. Last October, that is.
Back in last October, the England revival was happening. People were beginning to take notice of how England is doing with Fabio Capello in charge in his first foray in international football management. Back then the sentiment was that the Italian, who had won league titles at wherever clubs he used to be in charge, seemed to be able to transfer his success into a national team which was rediscovering itself after missing out on the Euro 2008 tournament. As for the Euro 2008 losing finalists Germany, internal strife. There was a prelude of sorts which it started during the time when Germany was playing Russia at home in the World Cup qualifiers in that month itself. Now as an ex-Germany supporter, that was for me the last best match the German national team had played...even though it was a game of two halves. But that match eventually was to be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
It was reported after the match which Germany won that Kevin Kuranyi had actually left the stadium during half-time. He never made it as far as to the substitutes’ bench in that match. The moment the German FA got wind about the incident, they managed to act. Even if Kuranyi eventually apologised for what he did, national team coach Joachim Loew had declared that as long he is still in charge, he will never call up the Schalke striker ever again for any match. Since then I always had mixed feelings over what Kuranyi did; considering it seemed at that time that Loew always seem to favour Miroslav Klose (which was understandable with his form for Bayern Munich then) and the curious case that is called Lukas Podolski as his two main strikers. Kuranyi is being seen as the fifth-choice striker in the national team, down the pecking order. Back then in my moment of anger, the devil in me was saying that Loew would eventually eat his words if his usual choices of strikers are injured. But then, that was not the first time I had a collision course of sorts with the national team coach.
But what almost had me at breaking point came later that month in October itself. It all happened with a newspaper interview which national team captain Michael Ballack did when he was still recovering from injury. It was interpreted in the German press at that time that the captain is on a collision course with the national team coach over decisions he made in the national team. The German football authorities were not pleased, to say the least. The fact that the situation dragged on for a while and not being settled quickly meant that it threw the national team a new set of turmoil post-Euro 2008. Various sections of the German football community throwing in their thoughts on the incident and questioned why national team coach Joachim Loew never flew to London where Ballack was playing his club football with Chelsea to have some sort of showdown talks with his captain. Loew defended his decision of not heading out to London. Instead, he made his captain flew back to Germany for a meeting.
By then, news of the ‘spat’ had reached England. What was first seen as a German football problem, it had managed to find its way into England considering all the more it came weeks before the two old rivals meet in Berlin for a friendly. To imagine it was settled on, Halloween. Spooky as it may sound but, the incident surfaced again some days after the friendly against England (which the visitors won). It soon died down after the ‘second wave’ when Ballack said in a TV interview that he did not regret what he said in the fateful newspaper interview before the national team coach reminded him of his actions.
But it eventually has its repercussions. What happened between Michael Ballack and Lukas Podolski in the World Cup qualifier away in Wales on April 1 this year. A tactical disagreement between the two team-mates during the match itself almost descended into chaos, in front of the television screen. Or at least it was caught on German television during the match. Podolski was made to apologise for what he did and the fine which he had to pay had to be given to charity. Not only that, he had to do community work.
Still, even way before what happened to Michael Ballack and that fateful newspaper interview he gave, the internal strife in the German national team had already begun in the aftermath of the Euro 2008 final. Ballack refused a request to show a banner to the fans who had watched the team in the final (they were beaten by Spain) in acknowledgement of their support and that was apparently when his relations with national team manager Oliver Bierhoff turned sour over the banner incident. Both men traded barbs through to the media especially after Germany began their World Cup qualification campaign. While the two eventually patched up earlier this year, I had my doubts even before that happened.
Because there were the cases of Michael Ballack’s ‘spat’ with the national team coach last year, and with Lukas Podolski this year. Has Germany become the new Holland of old? Internal squabbles...have that become a German thing? Each time it was promised that it would never happen again, I laughed it off. What happened this year in April in Cardiff between Ballack and Podolski proved me wrong.
My summer of 2006 was all a lie. It was never to have supposed to have happened in the first place. I was being robbed of my football summer three years ago. My father will always recall with bitterness over what Diego Maradona did against England in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals as an England supporter in the first goal Maradona scored (you know, the 'Hand of God' goal) and I think, I am in the same spot myself three years ago. If it was the now-Argentina coach whom robbed my father of his football summer all those years ago which actually happened the year before I was born, it happened to me in the 2006 edition with the German national team. And to think Germany was not supposed to have hosted the 2006 World Cup and it was only possible due to a voting scandal in the race to host the 2006 edition, it has left me feeling betrayed even more.
Things may be different as an England supporter for me now but, there used to be a time in my footballing life where it was not the case. A time when football was not about what happens on the pitch. A time when football turned to the dark arts, and it has nothing to do with match-fixing, diving. It was the first time I actually asked myself what is football really all about. I had my happy moments when I was still a supporter of the German national team as well but, it will remain as memories. Or as one of ABBA’s songs in ‘Our Last Summer’ puts it...
Our last summer
Memories that remain
