Wunderbarer Artikel von Cohen in der New York Times über das deutsche Fussballwunder:
„O.K., time for confessions, I’ve morphed into a German fan — and not just because the language has a word for pleasure in someone else’s pain.
A German fan is something I never expected to be. Germany has become the country I could never settle in yet love most. It has played the most exciting football here, not least in demolishing Argentina 4-0, and made the most exciting political statement with its Benetton-ad team.
When you spend a lot of time in conflict zones where people won’t change, where they nurture grievance and make a fetish of difference, where they never exhaust a bloody past’s capacity to ignite violence, you become a sucker, an easy touch for change. I love Germany for changing in its own way, earnestly.
I love it for becoming Europe’s ballast rather than its brute. I love it for facing the past rather than yielding to it. I love this Stuttgart-on-the-Med soccer school where Turkish flair meets the precision that yields the hermetic clunk of a German car door. I love the new Müller-Khedira sweet spot of athleticism and artistry.
Leaving South Africa now, with just four teams left, I’ve been thinking about our incorrigible thirst for the worst. Those who stayed away out of fear missed an uplifting event, and not just the German bit.
(…)
This is the first magical World Cup.
What’s the difference between war and peace? One day.
Oh, yes, Germany the Friedensmacht, or peace power, to win.„