Supporting Germany

The other day I had a rather strange experience. The day of the Germany-Poland game - massive amounts of hype had even reached Fulda and the sleepy town found itself in a state of excitement and expectation. I was somewhat caught up in the excitement, looking forward to seeing a good game and supporting Germany. We watched the game at the uni, as part of the Hochschultage (a sort of mid-semester Freshers' Week - basically a chance to sit in the sun, with a beer in hand, accompanied by live music if you're lucky and drunken Germans if you're not) - in between some improvised theatre and some live music (we were lucky!) We had front row seats in the main hall at the uni. Behind us sat rows and rows of Germans, eagerly awaiting kickoff. When the whistle went I was excited as any of the Germans. I enjoyed supporting the German players, groaning when one of their passes went astray, cheering when they did a good move. This was pretty much how it went until the game started drawing to a close. One of Poland's players got sent off and I had a feeling Poland were going down. Then, in injury time, Germany scored the winning goal. The whole hall went crazy - people jumped, hugged one another, spilled beer, shouted in jubilation. I found myself in a state of confusion. I wasn't happy at all. In fact, I was rather disappointed. I felt the word "typical" creep into my thoughts. I realised that actually I didn't want Germany to win. I thought I had been supporting them. I had managed to not only fool all the Germans in the room, but myself as well. Since the event I have come up with the following conclusion: as an English football fan it is impossible to support a winning Germany, They have "unfairly" knocked us out too many times on penalties. Lady Luck is always on their side. When they win it is "typical", when they lose it is "about time". No matter how long you live in Germany, no matter how affiliated you feel to the country, if you have grown up supporting England, you can never truly have your heart behind Germany, It is just the way it is.

So what now? Well, I will watch Germany play Ecuador and probably pretend to support the former but secretly want the latter. I will look forward to England having the chance to knock Germany out and start getting very excited about the fixture when it comes around. Oh and I will be 100% behind England for the Sweden fixture and hope that they don't get knocked out of the World Cup before we face Germany :-) Oh, and I will continue to point out my St George's flag to as many people as possible. Come on ENGLAND! (ps - hope you like the picture :P)