Hup Deutschland Hup!

Written by Dave Allan Tuesday, 06 July 2010 11:36

England World Cup Blog

I've noticed something funny over the past few days. Not just in myself, though it's there too, but among other England fans and English folk I know as well. I want Germany to win the World Cup.

I say it's something 'funny' because the lazy, cliched stereotype of English people, and England football fans - one which regrettably gets dragged out by my so-called comrades on the political left - is that we're a bunch of knuckledragging xenophobic idiots who would rather cut our own nuts off than see the Germans win. I sigh when I read that kind of candyfloss, because I'm afraid it's really rather out of date. It's been refreshing to tune into 606 and hear England football fans say they'd like to see Germany win, and feel the same thing myself.

Not just because they beat England and it makes our crushing humiliation a little less damning - though it does, a tiny bit - but because they deserve to win it. I'd be happy if the Netherlands got revenge for 74 in the final, I guess, and I wouldn't mind Spain winning either - it's only Uruguay who are the villains of the piece thanks to that handball against Ghana... and even then you have to admire the way their players have fanned out across the globe to learn their craft (avoiding, it might be noted, "The Best League In The World (tm)" as they've done it).

But... no. I'd like to see the Germans win most of all. They set a good example (apart from the odd bit of Klinsmann-like diving here and there), play attacking football, play as a real team greater than the sum of their not inconsiderable parts, and clearly love what they're doing. It's the excitement of young players playing with freedom - as opposed to the clunky creaking Premiership stars licking their wounds in their Baby Bentleys back home. Some twerps have been saying they're glad Germany won because somehow the PC Brigade scuppered England, but they're idiots who should be cheesegratered to death, quite frankly, the usual attention-seeking parochial planks - and they also ignore the multicultural German side, with the likes of Ozil, Boateng, Cacau and Podolski playing their parts throughout the tournament.

It's time for those stupid thinly-veiled references to the war - witness several tabloid headlines in the build-up to England's football lesson a week ago - to be consigned to the dustbin. Time to grow up, and I think most of us have - not all, of course, but I'd like to hope that the "Two world wars, one world cup" jingoistic drivel has gone the way of the two-footed tackle. I think we can be a bit more mature now, and say that the Bundesliga is something to admire and be envious of, despite our own league's self-proclaimed status as the best anywhere ever; we can either learn the hard lessons from being outplayed by Germany, or we can sink as they move ever further away from us.

It's fun to have rivalries, of course, and that's part of the appeal of the World Cup. One of the good things about the tournament - which its detractors don't get, I think - is that it can heal old wounds, not just reopen them. And besides, they beat bloody Argentina, so they're all right by me*. Come on Germany!

* This is a joke. Get it? A joke.

Read more football from the excellent Anton Vowl on his Enemies of Reason Blog

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