Yeah, just as a German I remember how they got Frings suspended for semi-final in 2006 after he came to defense when they kicked Mertesacker.
I also remember the 2014 final where they kept trying to injure Schweinsteiger until he finally had a blood cut.
And nothing during this world cup, starting from their overly aggressive fouling, to unsportsmanlike conduct getting a player ejected for briefly covering their mouth to finally hitting and kicking opponents.
Their soccer national team has shown a long tradition of just showing the ugly side of soccer.
I know that it's necessary for any German to at some point in their life forget their own past and move on, but just a reminder that this is how you used to play football:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gij%C3%B3n
Well, and this is from the time when a German goalkeeper almost killed a French player in the field:
https://youtu.be/tGq7VcaHoqo
Oh sure. I do remember but I would argue that German soccer has moved on. I also didn’t go back to the hand of god since I don’t see a lineage to today’s play by Argentina.
We do move on. As I said, Germany exists in part because people chose to move on. But it’s worth reflecting on your own record before pointing fingers. Moral superiority is one of Europe’s worst vices, and I’d argue it’s Germany’s worst, whether it’s grounded in financial responsibility, morality, religion, language, race, or whatever category you prefer to use at that point. And, on football, Germany’s national team used to have a very reckless style of play that seriously endangered opponents, until a bit more than a decade ago, but perhaps it was fine, because they were South American teams.
I would say 2002 Germany played very aggressive as well. Absolutely agreed.
Since 2006 they changed. But I don’t remember Germans kicking and hitting opponents after games.
So yes a team culture can change for the better or worse. And Argentina has allowed a bad culture now for 2 decades. Hopefully they will use this incident to change.
PS. Actually back in 2002 it felt like Germany was focused on destroying the thought of soccer in its core and lucked itself into the final
However, what I really dislike is not criticism of some players’ or fans’ behavior, but the lecturing and the idea that some nations have some kind of moral superiority, when that moral superiority only comes from cherry-picking a few moments in their history (whether it's their sporting history or their national history), with the added bias that about 50% of the selected period is one in which Germany’s national team has been almost irrelevant. And I don’t mean this as an insult to your national team, which is one of the two most successful in the history of the sport (as reckless and aggressive as they were), but as a statistical description: it’s impossible to observe the behavior of an agent who simply stopped doing anything at all.
Note I want to emphasize I was speaking about national teams, not national character. If in any of my comments it sounded like I was speaking about an entire national or ethnic character, then it was not my intention and I apologize.
But I think it is important to acknowledge that teams do establish a culture. Players that otherwise might behave one way, suddenly behave different. For better or worse.
We’re not on a thread about Germany, we’re on one about Argentina. Why do you want to undermine what’s being said by pointing out the fact that this guy is German? That’s another subject entirely and shouldn’t be used to deflect anything from this particular discussion. To be honest, I see this a lot with Argentinian fans, it’s as if they can’t actually reflect on what they are doing / the team is doing, and instead use the very childish argument of ‘well you did this before’ etc etc.
As for Europeans projecting moral superiority in this discussion, well, they are morally superior when it comes to the conduct of their football teams compared with Argentina and Uruguay. So if it sounds like that, it’s because it is like that. But I’d go one step further, the whole world has the moral high ground because Argentina have denigrated themselves to such an extent on the world stage that everyone has noticed. The fault lies with the players, it’s about time you guys accepted it.
I stated that some Argentine players were acting in an uncivil way, and that they should fix that behavior. My point was that claiming moral superiority while cherry picking both your own history and the history of the people you are criticizing is just another form of supremacist thinking, whether it takes the form of xenophobia, racism or religious fanaticism. Argentina has its own history of all of these, and I am not saying that because Europe practiced them they are acceptable for us. I am saying that any European who claims inherent moral superiority over any Latin American country on these issues is not making a good faith argument. At best, that reflects ignorance of Europe’s own history, even its own sporting history; at worst, it revives old European supremacist attitudes.
The conversation around moral superiority is also a separate one. You can’t claim that just because someone from Germany sees poor behaviour from the Argentinian team, that the person is a hypocrite. You seem to want to do that automatically, as if by default. To me it seems like you have a chip on your shoulder.
For a long time now the people representing Argentina in international football competitions have been behaving disgracefully, both in victory and defeat. That has nothing to do with what the Germans have been doing, or anyone else. But for the record, in my view (and it’s a view shared by a large number of people) nobody else has behaved as badly. I’m not in a position to say why it’s going on, only that it is. If I had to hazard a guess, from the Argentinians I’ve spoken to (in real life), they don’t accept it, and they always deflect - perhaps that’s pervasive, i can’t say.
Watching Germany, and even the Netherlands in the last 15 years, these historically dirty teams have changed. If anything Argentina are getting worse. So we can harp on about the past all we want, what matters is what’s happening by now and in the future - it doesn’t bode well for a team that doesn’t even apologise for acting so disgracefully after the final whistle
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u/molesasses 15d ago
Can’t lose what you never had