It's OK to Root for Germany

[soccergirl63]

Wall Street Journal journalist's Matthew Futterman, "a Jewish-American of a certain age", beautifully written article about his weird feelings rooting for Germany.
Article by Matthew Futterman

Source: Wall Street Journal "It's OK to Root for Germany"A version of this article appeared June 25, 2012, on page B8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street

Comments

[vanishing_act18]

Okay... reading this while listening to Michael Jackson's Heal the World actually reduced me to tears. And I still haven't stopped :')/(

[icanseenow]

Good article, but I was a bit miffed he said "Özil is Turkish", etc. Maybe that's just me, though.

[connorblond]

This. It rubs me wrong somehow. Because, he may be off Turkish descent, but he has a German passport.

[icanseenow]

If he were 100% Turkish, then I'd have been the only German kid in my primary school class and all the other 20+ kids would have been "foreigners". Because obviously being foreign means being born in that country & growing up there. *Headdesk*

I don't mean to say people can't identify themselves as they wish, but that is their own choice, not others. I certainly remember my friends felt torn between cultures that BOTH didn't fully accept them. How much that must suck.

[connorblond]

Yeah, and Özil chose to play for the German team even though Turkey offered him money to play for them - so he must identfy with Germany.

[connorblond]

He. This totally made me smile - only the Özil part makes me frown. Because, honestly, the guy is German.

[jenny_jenkins]

I read this a couple hours ago and liked it a great deal! Thanks for posting!

[solidark]

...another who referred to Bayern Munich / Bayern fans as Nazis...

Which is particularly ironic as from all the current Bundesliga teams Bayern München was the last one to be nazi-fied and they fought that development tooth and claw to the very end (which is something I tell all Bayern-haters in my vicinity because sometimes I think all that hatred is a remnant of that time when "good Germans" simply didn't cheer for Bayern München).

[solidark]

Oh, it's not exclusively an Canadian/US/general non-German-thing. Actually, most people in Germany don't know their history either (or choose not to know it). Which is kind of sad (but I do my best to change this *lol*).