Europe | Football as symbol

Footie in the time of terror

At times like these, football is so much more than a game to Europeans

Locking down the locker room
|BERLIN

THE eventual score was the last thing on the minds of the 70,000 French and English fans in London’s Wembley stadium on November 17th, as they sang the Marseillaise before a friendly match. On the continent that invented it, football was once again more than sport. In this case, merely playing at all showed courage and solidarity—or perhaps just a determination to keep having the sort of fun that terrorists want to deny the Western world.

Symbolism has been embedded in European football at least since the “Christmas truce” of 1914, when German and British soldiers temporarily stopped shooting and played a game between the trenches. Americans, who split their passions between baseball, American football and basketball, have nothing quite like it. In an increasingly secular Europe, the game, with its iconography and chants, has overtones of religiosity and collective identity, says Gunter Gebauer, a sports philosopher at Berlin’s Free University.

This also makes football vulnerable. “If that’s our religion, that’s what terrorists will attack,” says Philipp Köster, editor of 11Freunde, a football magazine. A match between France and Germany was one of the targets of the Islamist terrorists on November 13th: three suicide bombers blew themselves up just outside the Stade de France during the game.

After the final whistle, the German and French players retreated to their dressing rooms, where they learned of the unfolding tragedy. The German team decided not to risk driving through Paris. Their French hosts decided to stay with them. Horrible news arrived. The sister of striker Antoine Griezmann had escaped from the Bataclan concert house. But the cousin of midfielder Lassana Diarra had been killed.

“It was a grand gesture by the French side to stay in the stadium with us,” said Joachim Löw, the German coach. The Germans then decided that their match against the Netherlands in Hanover should take place as scheduled on November 17th. “This game has a clear message. It is a symbol for freedom and democracy and solidarity with our French friends,” Mr Löw said. For added symbolism, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and three of her ministers planned to attend. But on Tuesday evening, with fans already arriving, officials cancelled that match due to a bomb threat. A game between Belgium and Spain in Brussels was also called off. The terrorists, it seemed, had won again.

Football is especially vital to Germans’ self-image, partly because they are very good at it but also because Germans can be wary of other expressions of patriotism. Many West Germans feel that, psychologically, they became a country not in 1949 but in 1954, when the Federal Republic won the first of four World Cups in the so-called “miracle of Bern”. Another rebirth occurred in 2006, when Germany hosted the World Cup and put on a “summer fairy tale” for its guests. Germany showed itself to be tolerant and fun—a country that Europe and the world could live with.

Before the terrorist attacks on Paris, German football had lost some of its sheen. Germans have been shocked by allegations that the country’s football association, the DFB, had bought votes to secure hosting rights to the World Cup in 2006. Wolfgang Niersbach, the outfit’s president, has resigned but denies any wrongdoing. Questions have also been asked about the role of Franz Beckenbauer, Germany’s greatest football star as player, coach and evangelist. Tellingly, Germans used to call him a “figure of light” (Lichtgestalt). Today the halo is gone.

Getting back on the pitch will be a sign that Germans and other Europeans are able to defend their way of life. Efforts will redouble to hold, and secure, the European championship in France next year. Yet the mood in the stadiums will not be the same from now on.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Footie in the time of terror"

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