Politics
In Germany, everything looks like a crisis of governance
Germany didn’t just crash out of the World Cup on Monday night. For some, the defeat looked like something bigger: yet another national institution losing its nerve.
The 2014 World Cup champion, which has struggled at every major tournament since 2016, suffered a bruising defeat against Paraguay, losing 3-4 on penalties to be dumped out of the tournament hosted in the Americas.
But Die Mannschaft is not the only German national institution failing to live up to expectations.
“This national team plays the way this federal government governs: big on ambition, short on resolve. Everyone struggles on their own, no one takes responsibility, and when luck finally does appear, the goal doesn’t count,” wrote German Member of the European Parliament Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann on X, referring to a controversially disallowed goal made during overtime, which would have brought Germany victory.
There is “always a link between sport and politics,” said professor of political science Alexander Straßner — and Europe’s largest economy is no exception.
Much like its men’s soccer team, over the last decade, the country’s automotive sector and industrial backbone have lost much of their former shine.
When Germany crushed Brazil 7-1 in the 2014 World Cup semifinals before going on to win football’s most prestigious tournament for a fourth time, Volkswagen was on the verge of becoming the world’s largest automaker. Last week, that same company announced tens of thousands of job cuts, with major automotive supplier Bosch planning similarly large-scale layoffs.
Unemployment in the country has now climbed to its highest level since the Covid pandemic, and economic growth remains weak.
A nation once synonymous with delivering on performance, reliability, efficiency and engineering excellence is now better known for its chronically delayed trains, infrastructure mega-projects plagued by years of holdups and ballooning costs, and ailing automotive industry.
Germany’s international standing has taken a hit too: After Chancellor Friedrich Merz told students at a high school that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian regime, U.S. President Donald Trump responded by attacking the German leader on Truth Social and threatening Berlin’s nightmare scenario: a withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany.
Add to that the government’s very low approval ratings and the far-right Alternative for Germany party rising in the polls, many Germans don’t think Merz can turn things around.
The chancellor’s coalition government has struggled to deliver major economic reforms, with only a planned pension overhaul generating slight optimism among political observers.
Meanwhile, Merz seems unable to read the public mood — whether in politics or soccer.
“Even though the loss hurts: What a game, @DFB_Team! Your determination and team spirit throughout this World Cup inspired our country. We’re proud of you,” wrote the chancellor on X after the final whistle late Monday night, garnering ridicule and pushback from German fans.
German media outlet Tagesspiegel reported the post was accidentally published by a junior member of the chancellor’s staff, who selected the wrong prewritten message, but then altered its report saying that this version of events “apparently did not fully reflect the process.”
The end of Die Mannschaft‘s World Cup ambitions should not necessarily be taken as an irrefutable sign of Germany’s imminent defeat.
The country still has hope, argued Straßner: “In a political culture shaped by negativity … the decline of the West is always said to be just around the corner, with the state the national team held up as the latest omen. First the national team collapses, then society itself. That is utter nonsense.”
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has spent much of the last month displaying his intense soccer fandom, just said during a press conference on security plans for a busy July Fourth weekend that France and Norway would be playing. He corrected himself after Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said something to him in an aside: In fact it will be Brazil and Norway facing off at the Meadowlands on Sunday. France played Sweden there yesterday and Norway in Boston last Friday.
BELGRADE, Serbia — The blue-clad throngs who arrive in Santa Clara, California, today for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s match against the United States will not only be rooting for a national team that has already advanced farther in a World Cup than ever before. They will also be cheering for Palestine.
That has been a staple of every stop made by Bosnian fans on their movements through North America, from a fan march in Toronto to the streets of Los Angeles before the Switzerland match to the stands in Seattle. It reflects a strong current of pro-Palestinian solidarity in the Muslim-majority Balkan nation, where many draw a direct line between their own war and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In 1990s, a coalition of U.S. and European powers, fresh off the internationalist euphoria that followed the end of the Cold War, were determined that the war crimes in Bosnia receive the highest and most professional response international justice could offer.
They set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity across the region were subjected to rigorous trials led by international prosecutors and judges.
This is how Bosnia spent a painstaking 25 years putting the perpetrators of its worst wartime crimes on trial, culminating in a genocide conviction for those responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, carried out over three days in early July 1995. It is the only European country since the Nuremberg trials to have pursued such action.
Bosnian diaspora communities — many traveling in large numbers to watch the matches in the U.S. — along with people back home, feel a strong connection to what they see as the plight of the Palestinians and the absence of international criminal prosecution for the crimes they believe Israel is committing in Gaza.
The issue is further inflamed by the fact that Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik — the single most divisive figure in the country and the most fervent denier of the Srebrenica genocide — has weaponized the legacy of the war to curry favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Željka Cvijanović, a fellow member of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats now serving as the Serb representative to the country’s three-headed presidency, also visited Israel in late June.
Many of the other World Cup competitors whose fans most fervently embraced the Palestinian cause — including Jordanians who wore keffiyehs to their matches in Santa Clara — have been eliminated from the tournament.
LONDON — Much of Westminster will knock off work at 5 p.m. U.K. time for England’s round of 32 match against the Democratic Republic of Congo. Presumptive PM Andy Burnham is planning to watch with aides, while Keir Starmer, the man he is likely to replace on July 20, plans to watch in 10 Downing Street. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has a shadow Cabinet meeting at 4 p.m. but is set to end it promptly so she can watch from her suite of opposition offices in parliament.
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