An Wednesday we saw again that Germany is still not quite sure-footed on the fine line between triumph and tragedy. It could have been the brightest day in our history since the Wall came down – if Neuer, as demanded with rare unanimity by the “Bild” newspaper and Habeck, had run up with the “One Love” armband and been sent off because of it , then also ter Stegen and Trapp, because of course we should have held out the protest to the last goalkeeper; if Musiala had then kept the box as clean as Maier once did; and if Goretzka had headed the winning goal despite being outnumbered, it would be best with a bloody bandage around his forehead like Dieter Hoeneß did back then.
Too often we wore the wrong armband
Yes, then we would have proved to ourselves and to the whole world that self-sacrificing struggle for good is rewarded. Too often we have been on the wrong side of history, wearing the armband of evil, and therefore deservedly losing. This time, however, our expeditionary force is fighting an almost holy war in the desert: we can no longer tolerate intolerance, anywhere!
We on the home front are also extremely reluctant to follow this unnatural Christmas World Cup in Qatar, which not only wants to impose its medieval values, but also its prehistoric natural gas. And even the German record champions are disgusted by the millions from Golf, which of course he needs to be able to pay for his Neuers, Musialas and Goretzkas.
LGBTQ as fluid as the NSDAP used to be
Bayern will have to find other sources for this in the future. The wind has finally turned. In Nuremberg, as a protest against the human rights situation in Qatar, they even poured a specially brewed boycott beer down the fascia. Throughout the republic, Ukrainian flags are flanked by the rainbow flag. And the abbreviation LGBTQ is now as fluent on German lips as the acronym NSDAP was in the dark ages.
With this hypermoral support behind them, our boys should have swept the Japanese off the field, who still don’t seem to have learned anything from the defeat at our side! Of course we could have been warned. Have you forgotten what followed the kneeling at the European Championships in Wembley? We still find it difficult to demonstrate power on foreign missions, even if we dare to do so in the name of morality.
A queasy feeling crept over us when our men covered their mouths at the team photo on Wednesday. Probably not every viewer in the world has understood that this gesture should mean the opposite: we will not be silenced! After the catastrophe kick, our players were much too subdued for that. It was all about bad passes and other banalities. Not a word more about the bandage that the whole republic had been expecting: In hoc signo vinces.
In Putin’s empire, German male pride was not so great
And now? After the tie capitulation, we can probably only save our reputation as a moral superpower if, like Costa Rica, we make it clear that we don’t want to win a game at a World Cup like this. That was probably the case in Russia four years ago, but unfortunately it wasn’t communicated with enough gestures. In any case, we cannot remember armbands in the colors of Ukraine. German male pride in front of royal thrones was not quite as great in Putin’s evil empire as it is now in the small emirate.
Our interior minister is cut from a different cloth. While Habeck made a servant to the Emir while begging for Qatari gas, Faeser showed the armband to the sheikhs and the dark lord of FIFA. For this – and not because of the new quota of the Federal President – she should get the Federal Cross of Merit. Perhaps Steinmeier will also take pity on our tragic kickers, even though they are of the wrong gender, and comfort them with a silver laurel leaf. Because now it’s no longer just the case at the Olympic Games: Being there is everything.