Yet another piece about all the flags on cars, balconies and especially on people. Today I was going home at around 4pm but had to leave the house once more to pick up the birthday present for my mother. My walk to me around the campus of the University of Cologne and I was rather surprised to see so many people walking around in Germany jerseys there. When I got home and entered the lift four people jumped in, dressed in Germany jerseys, wearing black-red-gold scalfs and face paint, you name it. This thing seems really to be getting out of hand. Or is it just getting normal? I have to be honest, it's not just a German thing, it's all over Europe. people are going crazy when their team plays, they come out in masses to support them and wear their national colours. So is Germany becoming what some people here would consider to be a normal country? Well, I still don't like the fact the half of the population (according to a recent survey) would love to see flags being raised for the whole year. This is way too much for me. Still it's just half of the population, I would have figured it's way more.On the positive side I like it when people sport more than one flag. There is a lot of cars driving around the city with a German and another European flag. Turkey has the most, mainly because there's a lot of people with Turkish origin live here. In second place would be Italy, I think. Still there are some weird combinations. I saw a car with a Turkish and a Greek flag which, when you consider the history between the two countries, is quite remarkable. And, oh my, The Netherlands and Germany? You gotta be kidding me?! That car still has all four tires? Lucky guy. I reckon quite a few people would go bezerk when they see a car dressed up like that.
So, to end this let me just say that I find it very remarkable that the immigrant communites have a German flag waving on their car, something a few years ago would be considered to be highly unusual. Maybe that's the thing when people talk about Germany is becoming more of a normal country. The immigrant communites seem to slowly accept Germany as their - at least second - home and maybe the Germans start to acknowledge the immigrant communites a little bit more.
Meanwhile I'm enjoying a nice game of baseball with the Yankees playing the Padres on Interleague play. It's another outing for pitching wonderboy Joba Chamberlain and right now the commentators a going crazy over a play he made while covering home plate. Did I meantion the Hanshin Tigers are still winning and remain at the op of the Central League? And the Red Sox just won't give in even though they seem to lose one starting pitcher after another. Somehow it#s nice to watch a slow sport like baseball as a contrast to all the football madness going on at the moment.
Germany vs Portugal 3-2 (Quarterfinal 1)
Huge upgrade from the last game's performance by the German team. This looked much more like the football invented by Klinsmann and Löw again. And finally a great outing by Bastian Schweinsteiger, a player I usually love to hate for his sometimes egoistic style of play. Portugal somehow didn't look convincing at all, a huge setback from what they had shown in their group matches. Cristiano Ronaldo never looked like he was in the game and their short pass play ended at the German penalty box almost every time. The changes the German coaching made compared to the game against Austria looked good, this time this was almost a 4-3-3, although some would see it as a 4-2-3-1. Still I can't understand why they set up Miro Klose to play the lone striker up front. That's the perfect role for Kevin Kuranyi who brilliantly shades the ball from the defenders and is a workhorse as a one-man attack. The defending midfielders positions were played really well by Thomas Hitzlsperger and Simon Rolfes and although they didn't do much offensively their defending was good, to say the least. A great team effort by Germany and this fuels the hope for a cup final berth because with a performance like tonight's they should not fear neither Croatia nor Turkey.
One has to mention though that there was a foul play by Michael Ballack before the 3-1 and Portugal's coach Luis Felipe Scolari was right to complain about it. I wonder what German newspapers would have written had a Portugese player scored the winning goal that way. It would have been conspiracy theories all over again.
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