obvious

I thought I could avoid the obvious this year. Two years ago, I spent post after post on a subject that's recurring with biannual regularity. This year: no time and no desire to go on about what everyone else goes on about. I'm talking about football.

For the last two weeks or so, the ball has been rolling in Ukraine and Poland, to the incomprehension and occasional derision of the western European commentariat. They've got fast trains in the Ukraine, apparently, but only if you take the ones they replaced as a reference. And Poland? Full of hooligans. It's been a feast for stereotyping and arrogance. Football has not lived up to anyone's expectations.

This being my blog, the only expectations that matter are the German ones. The Mannschaft made it into the knockout stages but the performances were mediocre. Three wins are respectable but there was nothing of the lightness and exuberance of the games against England and Argentina two years ago. It was almost dull to watch.

Tonight was the Germany's first knockout game. The opponent: Greece. If you were a football promoter, you couldn't make this up. The Euro crisis is often portrayed as a battle royal between the paymaster of Europe and the European champions of profligacy, Germany and Greece, and it's said if these two can't sort things out, the Euro mess won't be sorted out. You might not agree with this simplified view, but tonight, the main protagonists played out the crisis in small on a grassy field in Gdansk.

Germany dominated throughout, in exactly the way Germany, with its history, is not supposed to dominate. At some point, there was a goal, but for the most part the game flow forth (hardly ever back) and not much happened. Then Greece scored the equalizer. I was excited.

Not because I wanted to Germany to lose. These days are over. When I was in high school, it was considered extremely uncool to support the national team. This is how I saw myself supporting Denmark when they won Euro 1992. But when I left Germany in 1998 to pitch my tent in the US for six years, I discovered patriotism. With the World Cup in 2006, that sentiment became commonplace. People bought flags and replica shirt and started cheering at big screens as if it would make a difference.

I was in The Famous 3 Kings, a famous pub in West Kensington and cheered at the screen. Greece had just equalized and I knew what that meant. Germany would finally have to wake up and show a real effort. Fifteen minutes and three goals later, things were back to what they were in the first half. Only one team was playing and there was never a doubt about the result.

Before the start of Euro 2012, an Irish bookmaker with a finger on the pulse of the public and, controversially, its name on the underwear of a Danish striker had offered the following bet: Who's going to exit the Euro first, Greece the team or Greece the country? Tonight, we know the answer. Whether the country should follow it is a topic for debate. I can't see the benefit, and I'm hoping very much that a better solution will be found for the Euro crisis than the headline that has been making the rounds for a few days now: Germany kicks Greece out of the Euro.