by The biggest myth Germany ever sold to the world was its own efficiency. Almost everything closes here on Sundays. Most small shops only accept cash. Companies still communicate by fax. Even the simplest administrative tasks are drowned in the weight of their own absurd bureaucracy. When I was finally granted German residency – a process that took nearly a year, required four appointments with various government agencies and notary services – I was informed, by mail, that I could access my permit online through an app download. The instructions to download the app arrived several weeks later, also in the mail. The app didn’t work.
So it was with great recognition that I noticed the recent comments from the organizers of Euro 2024, publicly criticizing the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the host nation.
“If we have specific questions, Berlin refers us to the federal states,” said Mex Schär, the competition’s managing director, from Uefa. “If we ask there, we are referred to the federal government. We need clear guidelines and commitment.” Its co-managing director, Markus Stenger, said: “We have an incredible opportunity. You cannot feel this enthusiasm politically.”
Related: In troubled times, let’s celebrate our best values with Euro 2024 | Philip Lahm
On the face of it, Euro 2024 this summer feels like an easy sell. The first European Championship in a united Germany. A nation with football tied to its veins, with a track record of hosting major events, and almost all stadiums and infrastructure already built. Against the odds of Russia 2018, Plagueland 2021, Qatar 2022 and USA/Canada/Mexico 2026, perhaps Germany 2024 can even serve as a kind of palate cleanser, the antidote to a decade of strange, fraught competitions. together.
That’s the theory, anyway. And yet, on the pitch as it is, Germany have developed a habit of not losing open goals. With 100 days to go, there is still very little trace of this summer’s competition beyond the football media and the inevitable giant replica trophies plastered on the concourses of central train stations. The country’s railways have been plagued by strikes, delays and a chronic lack of investment. There are reports that Dutch fans have so little faith in the transport network that around 100,000 of them plan to arrive by bike.
Of course the interest, branding and logistics will all increase in the coming months. But for all the hard work being done by the 10 host cities, for all the enthusiasm shown in the incredible early demand for tickets – 2.3 million people tuned in for the final alone – there remains a lack of institutional capacity. behind the competition, very little coherent. messages, with no clear strategy other than a vague confidence that everything will be okay. Or as Stenger put it: “The federal government has not yet developed a significant vision for the competition.”
And Germany really needs a big summer here. When tournament director Philipp Lahm described Euro 2024 as “a turning point for Europe, for society, for all of us”, he was investing a huge level of expectation in what is essentially four weeks. international football. “This competition is a revival of the European idea, to better withstand crises and conflicts in the future,” Lahm wrote in an article for Kicker in October. “Europe and its values - such as democracy and freedom, diversity and tolerance, integration and inclusion – should be strengthened and celebrated.”
What Lahm is passionately arguing for here is football as a kind of universal binding force against containment and division, not just for Germany but for the continent as a whole. And if it reads a little fanciful and idealistic, then perhaps Lahm is influenced by his own memories of the 2006 World Cup, in which the hosts stormed to the semi-finals on a wave of goodwill, glorious weather and rekindled patriotism. . They give the Sommermärchenthe “summer fairy tale”, and even now it holds a rare and privileged place in German cultural memory.
“It was just one big party,” says now-famous squad member Thomas Hitzlsperger. “The weather was great, everyone was taking their families home, and every day was just a huge joy.”
The 2006 World Cup seemed to crystallize a moment in Germany’s history, a point in time when they simply gave it their all. A nation comfortable in its own skin and symbols, liberal and tolerant, with a thriving economy and a vibrant cultural scene, superfast trains and world-class football stadiums, with Lahm at right back and Lukas Podolski on the wing. . It was mostly a myth, of course, the kind of story nations like to tell themselves in the rest of Europe, but it still has its bite. “Sommermärchen 2.0, that’s the ideal,” announced Julian Nagelsmann when he took over the national team in September. “I will do everything to make sure it happens again.”
But the Germany of 2024 is a very different country: angrier, more broken, less sure of its place in the world. The war in Ukraine revealed its overdependence on cheap Russian energy; Because of the war in Gaza, society is deeply divided over the country’s long-term support for Israel, which is largely instinctive. A recent poll established the far-right AfD as the second largest political party in the country, prompting anti-fascist protests in cities across Germany.
In this pressure cooker Nagelsmann makes a short-term solution as head coach after three successive failures in the competition and the sacking of Hansi Flick in the autumn. He has inherited a remarkably uneven squad, short on defenders and strikers, increasingly estranged from the public they represent, with players at the last World Cup even openly questioning the support they were receiving at home. .
Related: Nagelsmann must revive Germany and unite a nation but are the tools missing? | Andy Brassell
“In recent years, Germany has always found a way to win tournaments,” says Hitzlsperger. “Recently, they’ve always found a way to lose. They don’t always play that badly, but they find a way. We have some great people, but we are still dangerous, even in possession, defensively. And up front, we don’t have the quality that other teams have. In Qatar, the team sometimes thought that people back home were trying to lose them, which is clearly not true. But it adds to the pressure of a home competition.”
For once, Germany enters a home tournament fighting the tide of history. They have gone behind in each of their last 11 championship games. They have not won a game since 2016. And their lot here is tough: according to the world ranking, the second hardest country of all the seeded nations. Hungary haven’t lost to Germany in a competitive game since 1954. Switzerland haven’t lost a game since 2008. Both have a strong core of players with Bundesliga experience. Scotland is improving fast and will relish the chance to shock on opening night. To win, Germany will have to use the qualities they have abandoned of late: unity, purpose, intent. And yes, efficiency.
But the prize is worth more than the trouble. Football doesn’t make the trains run on time, it doesn’t fix a broken public sector, it doesn’t heal political divisions for a period longer than life. But what it does, it does amazingly well.
“Life has become more difficult,” says Hitzlsperger. “We had war, we had Covid, lots of negative headlines. People really want a break. And football can do that. I don’t think there will be a long lasting change. But for those four weeks, people can have a really good time.
