Dhe Wembley Arena was only half full due to Corona, said BBC commentator Gary Lineker at the beginning of the game, “but it looks full, it looks full, it sounds full”. Even before the game against Germany kicked off, the traditional London stadium was on this Tuesday afternoon, what experts call a cauldron. Lineker, a former England national team striker, commented on this with a concessional combination of sentences: “This is not a final, not even close, but it feels that way.”
The attention that this round of 16 of the European Football Championship attracted in the UK, at least in England, can hardly be measured abroad. For England, which regards itself as the home and place of origin of football, Germany was the most feared opponent. Since the historic World Cup final in 1966, in which the English beat Helmut Schön’s team (with the help of the controversial “Wembley goal”) 4-2, the “Three Lions” have not had a single win against Germany international finals. That’s more than half a century.
Admiration to this day
In the days leading up to this game, the memories of the European Championship semi-finals in 1996, when Berti Vogts’ team threw the hosts out of the tournament on penalties, were particularly troubled in the days leading up to this game. Gareth Southgate, who is now the coach of the English team, hadn’t met at the time. The fact that he had given his team the chance to play in the final at home “will unfortunately be in me forever,” he said after the game. “But at least we gave the fans something to look forward to today.”
Gareth Southgate after his penalty missed in 1996
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Build: AP
Commentators overtook each other on Wednesday with appreciations of historical proportions. The sports director of the BBC spoke of a “day that the English fans will always remember”. It is one of “the most important victories in the history of English football, one that pushes aside the feeling of inferiority to an old rival”. With that he broached a much larger topic. Football, especially when it is played between England and Germany, is always politically charged, and the inferiority complex towards its big neighbor on the continent always had a dimension that went beyond sport.
Since the German economic miracle, the motif of the neighboring people, who lost in war but won in peace, has persisted in the kingdom. The “resilience” of the Germans, their ability to build a prosperous community and economy out of ruins in the shortest possible time and to regain a leading position in Europe, is admired by many British to this day. John Kampfner’s book “Why the Germans do it better”, published last year, has become a bestseller in the kingdom. Of course, football also played a role in this.
“An orgy of self-congratulations”
And now? The win comes at a time when the British could use a bit of encouragement. Many have suffered from the role they have played on the continent since Brexit. Where they were not seen as traitors to the European cause, they were seen as tragic executors of an idea that would harm them the most. When things weren’t exactly successful for the British at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a pinch of malicious glee, which of course was not directed against the victims, but against Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s crisis management. When the game turned after the first half and the British vaccination campaign overshadowed the European one, many Europeans did not respond with recognition, but with allegations of a supposedly selfish and nationalistic approach.
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