Euro 2024: Sporting spirit in political science
CHENNAI: Less than one year out from the Euros, Germany were dreading this tournament. They were still feeling the tremors of a few lackadaisical campaigns at major events. Since winning the World Cup in 2014 and reaching the semis at the Euros in 2016, the ultimate tournament team had lost its steering — failing to advance out of the Groups at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and losing to England 0-2 in the Round of 16 at the 2021 Euros.
Certain players were scapegoated. A treble-winning Bayern Munich manager, Hansi Flick, was sacked. Results didn’t improve. In September 2023, the German FA got Julian Nagelsmann to replace Flick. The squad needed an overhaul and it got one, gradually. It was considered a coup as the young coach was wanted across some of the biggest European clubs.
From September till the second week of June, Nagelsmann has tried to build a team in his own image. The result is that the three time European champions are going into a home event with quiet confidence; the dread of Summer 2023 has truly been usurped by hopes and expectations. Over the next month, a country will again expect. The players, some of whom played a big role in defeating favourites France, albeit in a friendly in March, will hope to marry those hopes and expectations.
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Like some countries across the globe, Germany has seen the rise of the far right. Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right German party, finished second in the EU elections last week. Reuters mentioned that ‘the AfD’s strong showing comes as Germany’s party landscape undergoes its biggest upheaval in decades, with new populist parties vying to take space vacated by the shrinking parties that have dominated since reunification in 1990’. That the AfD gained in prominence even after huge controversies — the same Reuters report mentions that the party’s lead candidate had to step back after ‘declaring that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were not all criminals — is to be noted.
In an unconnected but equally concerning poll put out by ARD, a public broadcaster, one of the questions pertaining to the make-up of the team, with respect to race (21% of the randomly selected 1304 people responded by saying yes when asked if they would prefer more white-skinned players in the side. Both Nagelsmann and Bayern defender Joshua Kimmich were shocked by the question. “I thought about it briefly and I have the feeling that we need to wake up a bit,” the coach said last week. “There are people in Europe who have had to flee because of war, economic factors, environmental disasters, people who simply want to be taken in. We have to ask what are we doing?
“We in Germany are doing well and when we say something like that, I think it’s crazy how we turn a blind eye and simply block out such things.” Both of them agreed that question was racist. Nagelsmann went further to call the poll ‘crap’. “We are playing a European Championship for everyone in the country,” the 36-year-old said. “Anyone who can play top football is invited to be a national player and give their all for their country. That is what we are doing. I hope I never have to read about such a crap survey again.”
This fracture came into sharp focus hours before Dortmund’s Champions League final against Real Madrid. The Bundesliga club, it emerged, signed a deal with Germans weapons-maker, Rheinmetall. It attracted criticism from some of Dortmund’s fans. “Just be honest,” said schwartzgelb.de, the club’s biggest fan blog. “Say Rheinmetall wants to improve its image and BVB wants the money, and that you have decided the company corresponds to the club’s values. But save us the statesman-like chatter.” That Rheinmetall also supplies munitions to Israel didn’t escape the fans venting their ire.
Football can be a very powerful tool to unite people (and societies). It acted as a balm when Germany last hosted a major event, the 2006 World Cup. Eighteen years on, will it have the same effect when Ilkay Gundogan, the captain, leads the team against Scotland on Friday night? The wider German society will hope it can.
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Before going to the Qatar World Cup in 2022, the German FA dropped ‘Die Mannschaft’. Literally known as ‘the team’, it was supposed to be the team’s big rebranding project (akin to Albiceleste (Argentina) or Selacao (Brazil) or Azzurri (Italy) . As it was considered extremely arrogant in nature, the FA quietly did away with it. At Qatar, they hit their nadir. Back-to-back World Cup group stage eliminations. Aristocrats reduced to also-rans. If they thought that was their nadir, 2023 saw something even worse. The last time they endured back-to-back-to-back losses, they were known as West Germany. Overall, they had lost six times in 11 matches.
Nagelsmann was the man who had overseen some of these losses but a quiet revolution was afoot. Multiple systems were trialled, debuts were handed out and numerous personnel were given a go in the same position. Some of the problems remained, especially at the back (they conceded eight goals to close the year, including three in a 2-3 loss to Turkiye).
But a few things changed between that loss and the last week of March, when they beat France and Netherlands in the space of four days.
A fluid forward line comprising of Kai Havertz, usually as a withdrawn forward who drops deeper to link play, Florian Wirtz, the 21-year-old Leverkusen attacker who hit double figures for goals and assists this season, and Jamal Musiala, one of the brightest attackers to come out of the country in recent times, was deployed.
Voila.
It’s given Germany the necessary fluidity and creativity in attack with all three capable of inter-changing, linking play and progressing with the ball.
Further back, they also have the returning Toni Kroos, fresh off a Champions League-winning season with Real Madrid. The midfielder retired after the 2021 Euros but he’s back for one last dance before retiring from the sport. Add in Gundogan, Antonio Rudiger, Manuel Neuer (at least to begin with), and Kimmich in the first XI, you have the makings of a solid team with the necessary sprinkling of stardust to go deep.
At the 2006 World Cup, an enterprising Germany team, against the wind, reached the semi-finals. It kick-started a joyous ride which culminated with the World Cup eight years later. Can the school of 2024 do something similar?