Floodlights at the Eintracht Oberursel Football Ground

Floodlights at the Eintracht Oberursel Football Ground

Whitsun football tournament co-incides with the Hessentag

The football club SC-Eintracht 1957 e.V. holds an international tournament in Oberursel at Whitsun every year, in which young football groups from throughout Germany and beyond take part.

This weekend the event is being held for the 44th time, and happens to co-incide with the Hessentag taking place in the town.

SG Rosenhöhe 1985 e.V. versus FV Neuenhain

SG Rosenhöhe 1985 e.V. versus FV Neuenhain

But apart from some concerns about the road closures in Oberstedten on Monday, the players should not have too many problems getting to the ground as it is outside of the zones where the roads have been closed for the week. [Read more…]

When England play football against Germany…

If you mention the word “football” to most Germans, then being English you are liable to be involved in a discussion about that goal.

Yes, the goal that took England 3-2 up against West Germany in extra time of the World Cup final at Wembley in 1966 thanks to a decision by a Russian linesman that most German football supporters have been disputing ever since.

German football fan - ©Can Stock Photo Inc. / gubh83One lesser known fact about that match is that Helmut Haller who scored the first goal for Germany kept the ball, as is the tradition here, rather than Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat-trick and by English tradition should have been allowed to keep it.  Haller returned the ball 30 years later.

But once you get past discussing whether it was a goal or not, the self-proclaimed German football experts like to remind you how often England have gone on to lose against their team, especially the last match at the old Wembley stadium and World Cup qualifier in 2000.

So it’s worth reminding them that in the return match in Munich in 2001 England beat them 5-1 – one of the worst ever defeats for the German national team – at which point the subject is usually quickly changed.

The strange thing is that the Germans actually like playing against the English side.  They even look forward to it, and call it one of the “classic” international games.

This week England and Germany were both playing to qualify for the second round of the World Cup in South Africa.  I was in Cologne and able to observe how many German fans were supporting England during their match.  They wanted them to get through to the next round.  They wanted to play them next.

There is, of course, no doubt about which team they will be supporting tomorrow evening, although I have heard the opinion expressed that they would rather lose to England now than to Argentina in the quarter final (with the added bonus of seeing another “classic”: England v Argentina).

I on the other hand will hopefully be cheering at the opposite moments to the rest of our building, and looking forward to further discussions and analysis with my clients in the coming week, however the game turns out.

When I was asked this week for my prediction, I always gave a diplomatic answer: “It’ll go to penalties”.

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