Euro’s dirty pretty things

Cheering for Germany in the Euro 2008 final, as American sportswriter Rick Reilly wrote about supporting Tiger Woods, is like hoping for “Bill Gates to find a twenty on the sidewalk... It’s like cheering for erosion.”But rooting against them too loudly in a public place could be fraught with danger, especially if three people sitting at the bar are in shining white jerseys with Michael Ballack’s 13 emblazoned on their backs. If Germany win, as they probably will, you might get booed out of the joint long before you can correctly pronounce Luis Aragones.And don’t even bother bringing up “the beautiful game” as a sharp retort. Germany tried it at the 2006 World Cup under Juergen Klinsmann and went down to the might of Italy’s masquerading attackers from the back-four. Now, all pretence of playing attractive football abandoned, they are back to “the clinical game”. It’s up to the opposition to make their boring efficiency look alluring.I’ve often wondered if Germany’s fans hate football. And I’ve been surprised with how many times I’ve been wrong. People who can root for Arsenal and Barcelona on another night somehow seem to gravitate towards the Mannschaft like ants to sugar, even when they’re playing a team like Turkey who — despite missing four key players — were calling all the shots in Wednesday night’s semi-final.Germany’s legions of supporters are growing everywhere, even in India. It’s not just the stubborn old folks who stuck with them even when they were taking on Diego Maradona’s gorgeous Argentina in the 1986 final. The ‘undecided’ are also slowly siding with Germany because of their “character”, their “mental toughness” and their “defensive supremacy”. It’s like ugly is the new sexy.Sentimental favouriteEvery tournament has a sentimental favourite, the team you support after yours has gone out. In the 1994 World Cup it was Bulgaria, in 1998 Croatia, in 2002 South Korea, and Zidane’s ageing France in 2006. In Euro competitions, Czech Republic filled the role four years ago, and this time Guus Hiddink’s Russia donned the mantle for their free-flowing dismissal of mighty Holland. Germany, naturally, have never been on that list despite the individual brilliance of scores of their players over the years.So now that Russia have been thrashed 3-0 in the semi-final, it’s up to Spain to stand against the might of the Germans as representatives of the dwindling minority to whom “the beautiful game” still matters.The Spaniards have a curious history when it comes to international competitions. They enter every tournament on a high, believing it’s the one that will open the floodgates for them. And so do the experts. But, after their chances have been built up, the inevitable happens and they end up sitting at home lamenting another what-could’ve-been campaign.This time Aragones’s boys have gone further than any Spanish team since 1984 (they won their only Euro 44 years ago). They’re on an 11-game winning streak and their stand-out striker David Villa did not even have to sharpen his claws against the Russians as they found goals from Xavi Hernandez, Dani Guiza and David Silva.One hour after Spain’s semi-final win, the Reuters online poll to predict the champion was 60-40 in their favour. But doubts linger about Spain’s ability to topple Germany because experts don’t consider them “clinical”, “tactically sound” or “hard” enough — in other words ugly enough — to go all the way. The critics could have a point.“Football is like chess, only without the dice,” Lukas Podolski, one of Germany’s key players in the final, had once observed, showing how much he knew about both games. The problem is that Germany may be right about being so wrong.