Only Two Nazi References!

In high school, I once wrote a long, melodramatic journal entry (I know, I know) about how it's much easier to deal with people if you instantly dislike someone the first time you meet.  My argument was, if you're wrong and it turns out they rule, !!AWESOME!!, but if they end up sucking, you're spared the disappointment of somebody letting you down.

The title of said journal entry was "The World is Full of Fucks."  I've since changed my way of dealing with people, metamorphosing into a beautiful, magnanimous social creature, but it's still hard when you try and give someone a chance who turns out to be a total dick.

That's how I feel about Germany.  Because of the bad history between Jews and Germans, I've always been careful to not blame modern Deutschlanders for the mistakes some of their ancestors made.  With that in mind, I was totally willing to give their soccer team an honest chance.  Boy, how wrong I was.

It turns out, the German National Team is full of fucks.



WHY I HATE YOUR TEAM - ZEE GERMANS EDITION

Dear Germany-

I hate your team almost as much as I hate your food.  Wait.  No.  It's the other way around.

Still, German food is stupid.  It's basically the equivalent of eating hot dogs and sandwich meat every day.  Oh yeah, and don't forget about salted, rotting leafy greens.  That sounds like a GREAT idea.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like German food once in a while.  However, as a man who has literally eaten pickle-cheese-and-barbeque-sauce sandwiches for every meal over an entire month (July 2005), I'm still pretty sure I would rather do that again than eat some combo of schnitzel, wursts and bierocks every day.

Moving on.

I'm a kind of at a loss for what to write about next, as a great deal of this letter was going to involve me talking shit on Michael Ballack.  As you may or may not know, Ballack was injured playing for Chelsea in the FA Cup Final versus Portsmouth, and now is ruled out of the tournament this summer.

On the one hand, good riddance.  On the other hand, he's so terrible that I'm actually disappointed he won't be around for me to complain about.  Such is life.  I'll pour out an unnecessarily fancy Bavarian brew in honor of our lost hate.

Luckily, there are plenty of other Germans still playing in South Africa that I hate.  Let's run down the annotated list:

Phillip Lahm - Terrifying eyebrows.
Mario Gomez - Looks 38.  Is 24.
Jerome Boateng - Unoriginal.  Too many other footballing Boatengs.
Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose - Traitors.  Actually Polish.
Hans-Jorg Butt - Hilarious last name that no one else will laugh at.
Cacau - Traitor.  Actually Brazilian.
Mesut Ozil - Possibly the worst hair on the planet.
Per Mertesacker - Such a stereotype.  6'6" and blonde.
Holger Badstuber - I'm pretty sure Badstuber is a future version of Justin Bieber living in the past.

When deconstructing Germany, it's impossible to avoid talking about the many stereotypes that exist about their particular brand of football.  Guess what?  They're all true.

German football is boring.  I would rather watch "Russian Ark" (again).  I would rather be stuck in Hartsfield Airport for an entire day (again).  I would rather take Art and Architecture of Ancient Greece (again).

A conversation:

"But ouwr fussball iz soh eefficient!" my stereotype of a German would argue.  "Vee hahve ahcheeved soh mahch vith ouwr soh kahlled 'boh-ring' styull."

"Look, Hans:  If I wanted to watch square pass after square pass, slowly working the ball down the field for a cross, I would watch the English.  At least their brand of boring is in my language."

"Yah, buht vee ahlso deefend soh vell, soh ohrgahnized beehind zee bahll.  Pluhss, yoo ahre ahware zat vee wihll doo vhateverh it takehs too vin."

"Yeah.  I'm well aware of your willingness to cheat.  Well.  Aware."

Which brings me to Torsten Frings.

I've referenced this before, and I don't care that he's not going to be in South Africa this summer.  Torsten Frings is the biggest villain in the history of American soccer.  Recap:  In 2002, the US made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup (beating Mexico AND Portugal in the process, might I add), where we faced a German team that would eventually make the Final.  I'll let video tell the rest of the story.



WHAT A FUCKER.  Remember how much the entire world freaked out when Thierry Henry handled the ball to send France to the the 2010 tournamnet?  Why wasn't there the same kind of outcry over this incident?  To the knowledgeable American fan, Frings will be forever hated, but in the rest of the world, he has no such reputation.  He single-bad-punnededly kept the US out of a semi-final rematch with South Korea I am 78% certain we would have won.  It still makes me want... to... piss... blood.

Let me put it this way:  Frings would have to cure AIDS for me to forgive him.  That's the bar.

In sum, Germany, I hate you times a thousand.  Suck an alpaca's dick.

-ZGS