June 15, 2006
In the end, Germany always wins
And in the end, Germany always wins
IT was not easy being a Pole in this city last night. Not easy watching Germany score in added time to win what had been a scoreless game. Not easy hearing tens of thousands of German fans singing fight songs. Not easy leaving the stadium knowing their World Cup hopes were down to mathematical possibilities.
"This is how Germany plays," said Chris Drogoszcz, 19, who had come a long way, from Krakow, with his father, Robert, to watch two German substitutes thoroughly ruin their night. "They always get better at the end."
It was a night for fathers and sons to take in a World Cup soccer match, the way American families take in a baseball game. Achim Weis and his son, Nico, 8, drove up from Lahr, in the Black Forest region of Germany, to take in the game. "Very good emotions," the father said in English about the crowd.
It was a night for people in wheelchairs and little old ladies and V.I.P.'s in suits and assorted Polish and German exhibitionists in odd costumes to file in together, safely, jovially, noisily, despite six months of concerns about violence that never materialized around the stadium.
Elsewhere in Dortmund, there were some clashes with the police, and about 300 people were arrested. But at the stadium, this was a night of stunning late-strike soccer rather than peripheral violence.
It was much easier to be German than Polish. The men in the black shorts and the white shirts have momentum now. They were of dubious quality when the World Cup began, unloved and not respected in their own country. Then they slopped through a 4-2 victory against Costa Rica. Now they are on the move, relentless Germany, the three-time champs, remembering what it was like to refuse to be beaten in many old World Cup games.
This is starting to have the feel of the way it was when South Korean pride swept the Reds to a stunning fourth place in the 2002 World Cup, and the way it was in 1998, when France united behind its suave multicultural team all the way to the championship. And even in 1994, the United States got out of the first round as the host. Home helps. But Germany is resourceful in any country, on any continent.
The Polish team had looked befuddled in their first match, a 2-0 loss to Ecuador, but last night it held off Germany, until Radoslaw Sobolewski was sent off in the 75th minute for his second yellow card of the night. Knowing that Poland was vulnerable with only 10 players, Germany began to apply the squeeze.
The Polish goalkeeper, Artur Boruc, stopped two shots with two-fisted punch saves in the 79th and 80th minute. Then Boruc, who had been so calm, began to protest and was shown a yellow card in the 89th minute. Almost immediately, Miroslav Klose and Michael Ballack hit the crossbar, and the Polish fans had to fear every extra second that would be added by the official.
One minute into extra time, David Odonkor, the son of a Ghanaian father and a German mother, who had given the Germans so much energy since coming on in the 64th minute, lofted a perfect pass in front of the goal. Oliver Neuville, another substitute, slid in and nudged the ball into the net with his right foot. Fans in the stands held up the numbers 54 — 74 — 90 — 06 — the three championship years, plus this one, a prospect that is no longer unreasonable.
The Polish and the German fans mingled on the way out of the stadium. Robert and Chris Drogoszcz displayed a photo of them in their red Polska shirts with a German fan in his white jersey. "Very nice," the father said of the German crowd.
This night had been festering on the World Cup calendar ever since the draw on Dec. 9, when these two countries, with so much history between them, were drawn into the same group of four teams.
Only a few weeks earlier, in late November, mobs of Germans and Poles arranged to meet in a forest just inside Germany, where they stomped and knifed each other — presumably because they like maiming and being maimed. Somehow, these louts became linked with the sport of soccer.
Ever since, the nation has been trembling at the thought of 50,000 people with brass knuckles and knives and chains converging on this city. The German and Polish police, operating in unison, forbade registered hooligans from coming to Dortmund, and then identified others who had slipped into town, a standard operation for major matches these days.
In the past few days, up to 60 Polish citizens were detained in this area, according to the police yesterday, not bad considering the huge numbers the German organizers have courted by showing all the matches at an open-air event called Fan Fest. As a result, this city of 600,000 residents, in a coal and steel region that has now diversified into gentler industry, was swollen with people brandishing flags, honking plastic horns, wearing gaudy team jerseys, behaving themselves around the stadium.
On their way out, Robert and Chris Drogoszcz calculated that Poland was still not eliminated from the World Cup, if Costa Rica could beat Ecuador today, and Poland could beat Costa Rica in its third game.
"We are going to play England," Chris Drogoszcz said as he moved along with the crowd. Germany was singing. Poland was hoping. Here, nobody was fighting. A nice night for a World Cup match