"Tor! Tor! Tor! Tor!!!!!!!!! Tor für Deutschland!!!!!"
(Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal!!!!!!! Goal for Germany!!!!!!)Radio-reporter Herbert Zimmermann could hardly keep it together when German player Helmut Rahn scored the crucial 3:2 against Hungary in the legendary Football (=soccer) World Cup final 1954 in Bern, Switzerland. His emotional commentary is one of the most famous audio documents in the history of German broadcasting and made him a legend. The event itself became known as "Das Wunder von Bern" ("The Miracle of Bern"). Nine years after the collapse of the Third Reich, Germany was suddenly world champion and felt "we are someone again." The unexpected triumph gave the battered nation back some hope and self-confidence and is considered the true birth of post-war Germany by some historians.
Why do I tell you this? Well, today is a historical day for us again. As you might know, Germany is hosting this year’s FIFA World Cup, and the opening game between Germany and Costa Rica is about to start in Munich in a few hours.
Most of you will probably not give a damn about football/soccer, and, usually, I don’t either. However, in honour of the occasion, I felt like gathering some patriotism and let you people know:
You won’t beat us!!! Hehe.Oh well, we shall see… The truth is: it'll be hard enough for us to reach the Quarter Finals, for our team ain’t never no good these days. But then, miracles happen, don’t they?
In any case, everybody seems to be going mad overhere right now. You can hardly buy anything in a shop that hasn’t a football or the German national flag printed on it. And when I bought a case of beer recently, I got a football along with it...
The bottom line is: there’s no escaping this World Cup, especially not for us press folks. To make things worse, there are four national teams who have chosen their accommodations in my immediate vicinity: Croatia, Ecuador, Tunisia and Ghana. So guess what my radio station (and we reporters) will be doing for the next couple of weeks…
Well, complaining won't help. Let the madness begin, I say!
Anybody of you care for football?
Here's the place to post!
See ya on the field
ANKE
