BERLIN: As Germany prepares to host Euro 2024, the 2006 World Cup – the last international football tournament on German soil – still looms large in the nation’s collective consciousness.
Today, the race, known as the “Summer Tale” (Sommermaerchen), is remembered as an occasion when German unity shook off the dark shadows of the past and showed the world a new modern image.
Klinsmann’s German team overcame dire pre-tournament predictions to reach the semifinals.
Despite losing in extra time to eventual champions Italy and eventually finishing third, Germany’s performance ended a decade of dominance with a World Cup victory in Brazil in 2014.
Competition on the field changed not only the way the world saw Germany, but also the way Germany saw itself.
Eight years later, in 2006, a key player who led Germany to World Cup glory, Philipp Lahm told AFP: “In 2006, we were able to stand behind the team and experience all the people who gave us energy.
Vacation is good. People come here to Germany and celebrate big holidays together. “
Gunter Gebauer, a German sports sociologist and philosopher, told AFP that the tournament had an immediate and lasting impact.
“The mood in Germany before the tournament was very low. The economy was not good. The weather was bad and football was cruel.
Gebauer, who lives in middle-class Berlin, saw his neighbors raise the German flag from his balcony, which was previously considered “forbidden” in the country because of nationalism after World War II.
“From there we saw the German flag and the national anthem at a German game – never before”.
