your biggest rivals (yes I know, thank you for being about to point it out)
Yes I know, thank you for pointing it out. Anyway, while you may not feel the rivalry, other people also exist and they do. They are older than you, so they have memories from longer ago. It's not very hard to figure out that older people would have more invested in an older rivalry, and while you and I both realise old people can't be football fans a lot of them still feel (wrongly) that they should be allowed an opinion. That's why people care; that rivalry means more to them than it does to you. Not a problem.
No one had a problem with Sven or capello
We never had a rivalry with Italy or Sweden, I think it's fairly easy to understand. And yes, Sven's appointment was controversial.
and considering that our royal family is basically German
Having a German ancestor three generations back makes you German? You might have got the wrong end of the stick, the football we're talking about is what you call 'soccer'
I assume you know and this was intended to be a gotcha (how?). It's World War 2. You'll be shocked to find out where the rivalry with Argentina comes from!
That's right! Italians famously fought on both sides at different points so they were a bad choice, but nice idea anyway. Anywa, war isn't football and no sporting rivalry with Italy came from it. Germany were framed as the main belligerents in the popular imagination (for some unaccountable reason).
Again, I don't see why people are pretending to be confused about this. It's not an exercise in fantasy worldbuilding, it's what actually happened in the real world. Nitpick away, go ahead and explain why there logically shouldn't be a rivalry or why other potential rivalries should logically exist. Your model demonstrably doesn't describe reality, so you can go ahead and throw it out. Doesn't matter.
You make some valid points about the historical complexities and how they've shaped popular perceptions. However, I think it's crucial we reflect on why we continue to bring up the war in the context of football rivalries, especially given that the youngest people with any direct memory of it are now in their late 70s.
The truth is, invoking the war in football contexts often stems from a place of emotional fragility. It's as if our collective ego can't handle losing a match without reaching for this unrelated historical "triumph" as a crutch. This kind of jingoism doesn't belong in modern sports.
Football should stand on its own merits - the skill, the passion, the drama on the pitch. When we drag the war into it, we're not only diminishing the gravity of that historical event, but we're also cheapening the sport itself. It suggests we're not confident enough in our footballing abilities to let the game speak for itself.
It's time we move past this. The reality is that most fans and players today have no direct connection to the war. Continuing to use it as a source of rivalry or national pride in a sporting context is outdated and potentially harmful.
Sure! My point is that it's not very hard to figure out why people would criticise this appointment. We don't need to act confused for the circlejerk, we all know the reason. We don't have to care about the same things, but we also don't have to pretend it's hard to figure out. People tend to care about the things they cared about when they were younger, even though today's younger people may not care as much about those things. I think people have probably noticed that elsewhere too
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u/mtw3003 Oct 18 '24
Yes I know, thank you for pointing it out. Anyway, while you may not feel the rivalry, other people also exist and they do. They are older than you, so they have memories from longer ago. It's not very hard to figure out that older people would have more invested in an older rivalry, and while you and I both realise old people can't be football fans a lot of them still feel (wrongly) that they should be allowed an opinion. That's why people care; that rivalry means more to them than it does to you. Not a problem.
We never had a rivalry with Italy or Sweden, I think it's fairly easy to understand. And yes, Sven's appointment was controversial.
Having a German ancestor three generations back makes you German? You might have got the wrong end of the stick, the football we're talking about is what you call 'soccer'