Germany focus
Dutch-German rivalry on the wane?
Unfortunately, Bayern's outstanding European season has an effect on the Bundesliga only in that there will be no immediate effect after all.
Thanks to how well the Munich giants and the other German clubs did this season, the Bundesliga had overtaken Italy's Serie A in UEFA's five-year rankings, which determine the number of clubs a league can send into the European competitions. Until the final whistle rang on Saturday in Madrid, the Bundesliga was in third place, meaning Germany could have fielded one more team in the Champions League in 2011.
Yet Inter winning the Champions League final put Italy back into third place by the narrowest of margins. Thus there will be no change to the status quo, but only for the time being, because it's extremely likely the Bundesliga will at last go past Serie A 12 months from now. That's when the 2005-06 season, which was very good for Italian clubs but very bad for German teams, no longer has a bearing on the rankings.
However, maybe Bayern's outstanding season does have a more immediate effect, though one of a quite different nature. I guess we'll have to wait for the World Cup to find out if Louis van Gaal's popularity and Arjen Robben's goals can serve to improve bilateral relations. I'm talking, of course, about the rivalry between Germany and Holland.
It was just a few months ago that I received an e-mail from a fellow journalist in London that included, more as an aside, this passage: "Don't know if you watch BBC programmes over there, but a recent episode of the Steven Fry vehicle QI was dedicated to Germany. He caused outrage among the panellists by insisting Germans didn't give a rap about Wembley 1966 or any rivalry with England. Very amusing."
Which has led me to presume that we must outline the state of affairs in the most recent past for the benefit of some people again, before we can discuss the potential Van Gaal/Robben effect. Of course I could simply tell people about how I spent September 1, 2001. That, you may recall, was the day Germany played a certain World Cup qualifier against England at home, in Munich.
I spent that day as a reporter for an English monthly, trying to find German fans who would tell me that this game meant really so much to them because there was this huge rivalry with England. I didn't meet any. The English writer David Buckley, who was there with me, didn't either.
Then I watched the game together with hundreds of other Germans in the Muffat Hall in central Munich. Germany were beaten 5-1, so I conducted my post-match interviews with the tact of a mortician - when suddenly an almighty cheer went up and people started singing.
As I turned around, I saw highlights of the Republic of Ireland versus the Netherlands game on the giant screen. The Irish had won and people were singing "We're going to the World Cup without Holland."
But maybe my own experiences and the behaviour of German fans don't count for much. Then let's say, just for the sake of the argument, that you fancy a holiday at the sea and have been to Blackpool one too many times. In that case, you could do worse than check out a part of the Netherlands known as Zeeland.
The capital of this province is a lovely city by the name of Middelburg. Last December, a theme-park-cum-museum called Voetbal Experience opened on the outskirts of Middelburg. It's the brainchild of four well-known Dutch sportswriters and an ambitious and knowledgeable enough project for a man like Guus Hiddink to attend the opening ceremony.
The Voetbal Experience has 18 areas, from the Oranje Hall of Fame or the Galerij der Groten (gallery of the greats, obviously) to Prachtig '88 (dealing with Holland's one single major trophy) and NL Profclubs, where every professional team in the Netherlands is represented. One of the largest of those areas is called Nederland-Duitsland. It deals with the peculiar relationship between two neighbours who take football very seriously.
Actually, that relationship rears its Janus-like head even before you get to said area. When you walk up the stairs from the Oranje Hall of Fame and turn right, you'll find a poem on the wall. It's called 'De moeder aller nederlagen' and it finishes with the couplet: 'Wij waren de besten/Maar zij waren beter.'
I don't think we need my friend Ernst Bouwes to help us with that one. The poet bemoans the mother of all defeats and declares: we were the best, but they were better. That refers to the 1974 World Cup final, of course, a game that pained the Dutch much more than Germans realised at the time. This initial skirmish would later evolve into open warfare.
(I'm using these unfitting expressions with a purpose. Some of you may know that the Dutch coach Rinus Michels is famous for the line, "Professional football is something akin to war". Then there is a book about German players in the Eredivisie, called 'Playing with the enemy? The everyday peace behind the German-Dutch football war.')
You can read about the rest of the story on Wikipedia. (Yes, the Dutch-German football rivalry has its own Wikipedia entry. Tellingly, the entry for the English-German rivalry doesn't have a German-language version.) Meanwhile, let me take you back to Middelburg and the Voetbal Experience.
The Nederland-Duitsland area may deal with neighbours who take football very seriously, but it's delightfully tongue-in-cheek. There are two entrances, one for Germans and one for the Dutch, and one of the first things you see is a plaque that lectures you about the football they play in the two countries.
Of course Dutch football is described as offensive, creative, entertaining and so on, while the German style is being characterised as dour, defensive and disciplined. But at the bottom of those lists is a button. If you push it, the installation shows you the results the different styles will yield. Press the Dutch button and you hear a single, shy chime, then the image of the Coupe Henri Delaunay flashes up. Press the German button and it goes bang, bang, bang and the trophies keep coming.
However, a true sense of division cannot be maintained in this area, because the two groups soon mingle and are invited to check out exhibits and watch films together. Until they reach the exit. That's where you'll find a confessional box with a Dutch and a German seat. If you sit down on the German side, you hear somebody with a Dutch accent apologise for all kinds of things, including cluttering the German Autobahn with caravans. (I didn't check out the other seat because I don't speak Dutch.)
Anyway, this light-hearted approach to the rivalry tells you that things are no longer as tense or serious as they used to be. Many people from across the border have told me that the 2006 World Cup helped change the Dutch perception of the Germans. And the German perception of the Dutch?
Well, of course it's just a coincidence that the Voetbal Experience opened less than a week after Louis van Gaal had charmed the pants off the viewers of a well-known German sports show in an attempt to better his image that may have been calculated, but was still spectacularly successful. But can it also be a mere coincidence that it opened just five days after Arjen Robben first wore the floppy cotton long johns that became a cult item and marked the beginning of his run of amazing performances?
Be that as it may, Louis van Gaal, who has won few popularity contests during his career, has become a bit of a folk hero in Germany. "I have never had such a positive image," he recently said with some incredulity. Robben, meanwhile, has become a bit of a footballing hero in Germany. And in their wake, even Mark van Bommel, long since disliked by opposing fans as the embodiment of Bayern arrogance, has begun to look like a jolly good fellow.
"I do believe that the relationship between the Dutch and the Germans has improved," Van Gaal said last week. "That's unbelievable. And that's nice."
If things continue the way they're going, the Germans and the Dutch will end up rooting for each other at the World Cup. And that means we need a new rival. What was that thing about Wembley and 1966 again?
