Europe's Bloodsport

By Matthew Kaminski
Saturday, June 28, 2008

The English striker Gary Lineker once said, "Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win."

The wisdom is eternal – infuriatingly so. Turks are the latest to feel its sting. Their side pulled off miracles to reach the final four at the current European Championship and looked the better against Germany for most of Wednesday night. Then the inevitable happened: Germany 3, Turkey 2. The Portuguese always play beautifully until an important game comes along, when they collapse – at this year's tournament, to the Germans in the quarterfinals.

I feel their misery. Better than most. By blood, I am a Pole. In European football – let's dispense, in deference to prevailing global sports tastes, with "soccer" – blood is what counts. My land of birth has, over the years, had a few run-ins with its western neighbors. None ended all that well, certainly not in football.

I'm also American. It is the place my family found refuge and I got some schooling and a job. Split characters like me are often asked: Do you feel more X or Y? There's no straight answer. America is a state of mind. You choose your America. You choose your sports teams. I once loved the Orioles and, since that Pete Angelos guy bought and ruined the team, couldn't care less today.

To be a Pole or a Turk or a Portuguese is in the bones. There is no place for free will, in identity and sporting terms. No other team can ever make me feel as miserable as Poland.

Yes, in this globalizing era, Europe is changing fast, becoming more like America. Sweden's star striker is a Bosniak. The French side is mostly made up of children of immigrants from Africa. The best Polish player is Roger Guerreiro, born in Sao Paulo and handed a newly minted Polish passport just before this tournament.

The Germans are no more racially pure. In the predictable 2-0 defeat of Poland, our Roger proved no match for their Lukasz Podolski, a striker bred in Poland who scored both goals for his adopted Germany. After each, Mr. Podolski looked almost disconsolate. You don't celebrate yet another humiliation of your people.

German flags are all over Berlin these days. But "the Turks are the only people who own German flags here," a German friend half-joked, before we went to watch the Portugal match. Many Turkish shop owners hang them out with the Turkish flag to ward away any drunken postmatch trouble.

The Germans know all too well that an atavistic attachment to "blood and soil" has been Europe's undoing. So "Europe" may be the straitjacket willingly worn – and for Germany, a way to try to deflect the Continent's resentment of its football team. But every four years the passions stirred by this tournament remind us that the postmodern "European" identity isn't even skin-deep.