OTA Berlin Apartments

 

 

See previous OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog EURO 2012 articles – http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/category/euro-2012-2/

Angela Merkel will watch Germany-Greece live at the PGE Arena in Gdańsk – Is it a EURO Grudge match?

Of all the G20 world leaders, it is German leader Ms Angela Merkel and the only woman leader amongst them, who stands apart as the one with a passion and has the most affection for the game of football – her love for the beautiful game is well known.

Her other major well-known ‘weakness’ or obsession is her love of beautiful music – generally Opera – and specifically those of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Ms Merkel even watched the Champions League final with UK Prime Minister David Cameron while on a US visit when the nominally ‘British’ team Chelsea beat the slightly more German FC Bayern München .

Of all the German national games she has seen in the past –including those at the South African World cup in 2012 none are quite as significant as tonight’s quarter-final game against Greece.

There are and will be many comments made and referring to the Euro and the concomitant position of the two countries Greece and Germany and the extrapolation of their political and financial impasse on the football field.

Some political commentators are already naming it the “Debt Derby”. The BBC is calling it the Bail-out Game – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18532321

However all of this is patently absurd because the problem with Greece and the Euro has very little to do with Ms Merkel as such but more with the rich bankers in both Greece, Germany and elsewhere who are responsible for the present state of flux in the world economy.

The opprobrium of the Greek people should firstly be pointed at the very rich Greek bourgeoisie who gladly took the EU monies when it suited them and then ran! They now want ordinary Greeks to pay their gambling debts and most Greeks – as other people in Europe know – this is an absurd and unfair situation.

However to blame Ms Merkel and Germany is just not that accurate. Enough of this political thought – back to football!

German football matches and politics is nothing new. At the 1974 FIFA World Cup finals – which West Germany won – in politically very prestigious game the DDR actually beat West Germany 1-0. This great victory came to signify [in the DDR at least] that the communist country was somehow ‘better’, than its capitalist neighbours.

By comparison to that particular game, tonight’s fixture against Greece game would even seem insignificant and players and coaches on both sides are playing down any non-sport related undertones which the press may be putting onto the game.

Greek player Ioannis Maniatis has said that is is only a game…….but during this difficult economic time in Greece…..he we will be playing to make the Greek fans as happy as possible – we presume with a win!

A very good article about the sportng history to this game at -  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/soccer/greece-plays-germany-in-euro-quarter-without-heart-of-team-facing-david-vs-goliath-match-159914325.html

I think German should win this game. All the computers tell me and the bed-wetting BETTING companys tell me so. However the nice thing about football is that sometimes other things – namely the courage and spirit of a team or even a nation can make players do amazing things.

If…………..if………..Greece would win ………..it would not help the tournament at all because Germany is simply better and play a much nicer football than Greece do. Also it would be a shame not to see what the German team could acheieve as it developes. So I do not want Germany to lose – they have a very sympathetic coach and players and they are very good.

However can anyone not sympathize with the Greek team and not want the Greek people to have some sporting sun-shine land upon their country yet again……after their surprise win in Portugal some years ago?

I wish both teams all the best – may the better team win!

 

What did you think of the Refereeing at the EURO 2012? Please let us know and vote for or against what you thought about the REF – http://www.ota-berlin.de/blog/06/19/euro-2012-best-and-worst-wurst-referees-at-euro-2012-poll-by-contributor-ota-berlin-constituency-blog-contributor-mr-filip-van-der-plas/

Best place I have found to watch EURO 2012 in Berlin is at the PRATER beer garten on http://www.pratergarten.de/d/ on Kastanienallee 7 – 9 in Prenzlauer Berg. Very close to the OTA-Berlin Serviced Apartments buildings at Metzer Strasse and Schoenhauser Allee.

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This blog is brought to you by …..OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog’ is part of OTA-Berlin   ‘……the intelligent Apartment-Alternative to Hotels  in Berlin’. The views of the article are those of the writer Mr Filip v d Plas and not necessarily those of OTA-Berlin.

 

EURO 2012 – Daily Report – DAY 16 – Later today GERMANY vs GREECE – Angela Merkel will watch Germany-Greece live at the PGE Arena in Gdańsk – Is it a €/ EURO Grudge match? by contributor OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog contributor Mr Filip van der Plas from OTA Berlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License. If you use this article or parts of it, please refer to http://www.ota-berlin.de.

Tags: Bail-out Game, EURO 2012 - Daily Report - DAY 15, EURO 2012 European Football Championship in Poland & Ukraine, euro-2012-blog.com, Germany-Greece .Bail-out Game -, Is Germany/Greece a €/ EURO Grudge match?, Is it a €/ EURO Grudge match?, kicker de, OTA-Berlin Euro 2012 poll, OTA-Berlin Euro poll vote, pratergarten.de, vote on EURO 2012 poll, who will win Euro 2012?, www.11freunde.de

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2012 at 10:59 and is filed under Accommodation, Apartments vs Hotels, Articles by Filip van der Plas, Berlin, Bundesliga, Events in Germany, Football Europe, Politics EU, Politics Germany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.