Germany vs. Turkey: Utter Madness

I wish I were a soccer fan.

I've never been good at watching or playing sports. In four seasons of PSU football, I made it to four games. I've been known to crochet, write letters, and play cards while I was supposed to be watching various games on TV. It's too much effort for me to simultaneously...
- find the ball,
- keep track of which direction everyone's traveling, and
- recall the few rules I've learned.
I rely on instant replay to show me when important things happen, because I never seem to catch them the first time. I have gained a lot of respect for people who can make intelligent comments about a game they've just seen.

At the same time, I've loved the non-technical aspects of being here for the EM, whose English name (as a helpful reader pointed out) is the Europe Cup. From the Montessori kids trading collectible stickers during recess...to the co-workers that come in wearing jerseys...to the kids on the street shouting "Tur-ki-ye"...to the instant conversation starters...it's a fun time. I may not know anything about the teams' strengths and weaknesses, but I know enough about their national identities to make me interested in the outcomes. And in this year's EM, the outcomes have been pretty interesting. Apparently, there's a good deal of variety in which teams do well each year. Italy, the 2006 World Cup champion, lost 3-0 to the Netherlands in a major upset. France, the 2nd place World Cup team and 2004 EM winner, didn't even make it to the quarter-finals.

Germany on the whole is strongly anti-patriotic. Given their history, they are wary of anyone who says they're proud of Germany or glad to be German. Schools don't have German flags or anything like the Pledge of Allegiance. The only context where Germans root for their country is in sporting events. 2006, when Germany hosted the World Cup, was a turning point: the first time in decades that people displayed little German flags. In the last few weeks, those flags have again been all over the place, namely on cars and hanging from balconies. My housemate Philipp warned me that the morning after Germany loses, all the flags will disappear. But Germany just played in the quarter-finals, and the ubiquitous flags show that it managed to advance.

Here's where things get extra interesting. The semi-finals have Germany playing against Turkey. Nobody expected Turkey to do well. My Turkish-German co-worker said she didn't care if they lost the quarter-finals; she was just delighted they'd made it this far. So it was a shock when they beat Croatia last night. (An amazing game, I'm told: Both teams scored their first point in the final seconds of double overtime.) The thing is, there are a lot of Turkish-origin people in Germany, including near me in Neufahrn. Many of them have been rooting for both teams (see above photo). Most have a conflicted relationship with their host country, complicated on both sides by dozens of factors. I am curious to observe how this tension plays out on the field. (In France, it would undoubtedly involve hundreds of cars on fire. Lacking citizenship, Germany's internationals avoid riots for fear of deportation, and Germans seem to prefer order more than the French do.) I'm not sure what to expect on June 25. But I'll do my best in watching it.