“Soccer, soccer, soccer, eat, sleep, soccer, soccer”. Freiburg coach Christian Streich recently used this aphoristic exclamation to describe his program until the World Cup break. After the current international round, the sports club and the seven other European Cup participants in the Bundesliga have 13 games to play within six weeks. After that, Freiburg’s pros are allowed to rest, unless they are taking part in the World Cup. The ball keeps rolling there every day until the final on the fourth Sunday in Advent.
In principle, then, wonderful prospects for the dedicated football crowd, although some people may already be anxiously wondering how they are going to close the gap between December 18 and Boxing Day until the Premier League celebrates “Boxing day”.
Lack of attitude? National player Jonas Hofmann presents the colorful armband that captain Manuel Neuer will wear during the World Cup to stand up for diversity and against discrimination.
(Photo: Sebastian Gollnow/dpa)
But for those unable or unwilling to ignore the raging debate here on Qatar, it’s hard to enjoy. The degree of acceptance in the audience is diffuse and will only become clear based on the ratings. The already extensive presence of criticism at the World Cup venue makes carefree anticipation at least difficult. However, some discussions can also be dispensed with, both in the political and in the sporting subject.
While Christian Streich happily stated that there were worse things for him than non-stop football, his colleagues are now outraged about the hate, as if they only found out about the World Cup the day before yesterday. The limit of resilience for the pros has already been “exceeded” anyway, said Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner – “and then you pop out another World Cup in winter!”
Less stress would be possible – but then income and wages would also drop
Fifa threw out the plan for the Winter World Cup in February 2015. So those affected had plenty of time to adapt. Complaints about overloading may be valid, but they are just commonplace. If you really wanted to reduce stress, the industry would have to give up the principle of growth and commit to reducing income and wages. Lower payments to players and coaches would be one solution for a healthier football system – but what do players and coaches think? Not much.
Ultimately, Glasner merely joined the chorus of those who are convinced that they represent the only true view of things. There are quite a few of these in this country. When the national team proudly presented a colorful armband that captain Manuel Neuer will wear during the World Cup to stand up for diversity and against discrimination, there was immediate criticism for a lack of attitude – because the colors are not the original colors of the rainbow. The DFB countered that it was the colors of the Pan-African and the “Pansexual” flag and therefore, in addition to the signal for sexual freedom, also against racism. You can see: The sign language of the correct attitude is complex and the sense of mission is high. TSG Hoffenheim has announced that it will demonstratively not report on its channels what the TSG players are doing at the World Cup.
It is not always easy to see where the Qatar debate is important and where it is becoming pompous. Joshua Kimmich has just identified a major problem: Calls for a boycott would come twelve years too late – twelve years after the decision for Qatar.
Christian Streich had already declared Qatar as the wrong venue in 2015. However, he then remarked that even a country like the USA was not without political concerns. Three years later, Fifa opened the next arena for debate by awarding the 2026 World Cup to the United States alongside Mexico and Canada.