Jason Cowley: We may dislike both sides but let’s cheer on Germany

It could have been worse for Brazil: five of Germany’s best players are injured and aren’t even at this World Cup

Loathed teams: Germany's forward Miroslav Klose and Lionel Messi of Argentina (Picture: AFP/Getty)

11 July 2014

I’ve held the German football team in high regard ever since, as a young boy, I won a competition to predict the outcome of the 1974 World Cup.

Before the tournament began, I told my father I thought West Germany would beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the final, as indeed they did. As it turned out my winning prize was a replica West German kit, which I used to wear despite mockery from friends.

I grew up in a household that was unashamedly anti-German. My parents were children of the London Blitz and both were evacuated. I remember, on one holiday, being the only German fan in the hotel’s television room, where many of us had gathered to watch the 1976 European Championship final.

West Germany lost that match to Czechoslovakia following a penalty shoot-out memorable for Antonín Panenka’s audacious chip, which crossed the line as if in slow motion.

Last summer the New Statesman published a cover story that asked a simple question: “Why can’t we be more like Germany?” We expressed admiration for the country’s social market model of capitalism, its localised banking, its investment in apprenticeships and skills and its commitment to manufacturing and engineering. We also said we loved German football.

We had a tremendous response to the issue and the cover was being retweeted on the night Germany destroyed Brazil 7-1 in Belo Horizonte.

That victory was no fluke but the culmination of long planning. After the 2000 European Championship, at which Germany were abject, a decision was taken by the DFB (the German Football Association) to rebuild the national game from the bottom up, with investment in club academies and the creation of a network of youth training centres.

After another German failure at Euro 2004, Jurgen Klinsmann was appointed coach and he chose as his assistant Joachim Löw, who would succeed him after the 2006 World Cup. “We need to question every ritual and habit,” Klinsmann said. “And we need to do it continuously — and not just in football.”

German football was reborn under Klinsmann and the team has continued to excel ever since through playing a relentlessly fluid passing and pressing game which reached its apotheosis in Belo Horizonte. It could have been worse for Brazil: five of Germany’s best players are injured and aren’t even at this World Cup.

The Bundesliga is a model of how to run a national league, with investment in youth and low ticket prices for fans. With a few exceptions German clubs operate “the 50+1 rule” — which means clubs must be 51 per cent owned by their members, in effect, the fans. This prevents a club such as Bayern Munich from ever being vulnerable to capture by international speculators, as has happened in the Premier League, where our leading clubs are all foreign owned.

The World Cup final features two teams that have traditionally been loathed: Argentina and Germany. One is reminded of Henry Kissinger’s remark about the Iran-Iraq war of the Eighties: “It’s a pity they can’t both lose.” Yet if Germany are triumphant on Sunday, an absorbing tournament will have the winners it deserves. We should all get behind them, for we have much to learn.

Jason Cowley is editor of the New Statesman

Jason Cowley: We may dislike both sides but let’s cheer on Germany

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