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Τρίτη 14 Ιουλίου 2015

How can Bayern Munich come to Greece for a Champions League match?


On July 10th in the Municipal Stadium of Veria the players and the staff of the U19 national team of Germany lived an unpleasant surprise before and during their opening game (vs Spain) for the UEFA U19 European Championship. They saw and heard more than 5.000 Greeks booing during the national anthem of Germany and they tasted the same bad experience during the match whenever they had the ball. It was a huge and unpleasant surprise although UEFA delegates had forewarned them about it. In fact this fear was one of the main concerns UEFA had before the tournament. That's why there was a relief on July 13, when the Germans were knocked out from the semifinals. After the history written in Brussels on Saturday & Sunday 11/12 of July during the Eurogroup and the Euro Summit meetings and especially after the Euro Summit's Statement on Greece, things would be more than worst for the national team of Germany in a semi final on Greek football ground.

During the last couple of days I have tried to explain to my foreign colleagues, answering their questions, how we Greeks fell after this act of war from Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schauble. After hearing my thoughts on this matter, many of them encourage me to write a piece from my point of view. Some of them knew my admiration and respect for Germany, not only in football. I am among the warmest Greek fans of Bayern Munich, I have studied the German language for more than 5 years, I choosed Munich as the destination of my first trip abroad. And since I was a child I was always fighting with my father, a survivor of World War 2 because I was always choosing to support Germany in World Cups. I was always trying to explain him the need to separate football from politics. These days I caught myself having his mixed thoughts because of the feelings.

There is no need for us Greeks to substantiate our claim that these days we are living the toughest of the attacks from Germany. We are trying to survive, but that doesn't mean we pretend that we don't understand what Merkel is doing on us. I am sure that you don't see it because you don't live in it and we don't speak a language similar to English. If Greeks were speaking English this point would be critical for Europe, because we 're living in a war with Germany. You can't see it, because you don't see weapons, battles, killings, bombs. We feel it because we are counting more than 10.000 suicides since 2010, during this harsh economic crisis. We feel it because we have more than a million people living below poverty line and we are counting more than 2 million unemployed people. We feel it because banks are closed for more than 12 days. We feel it because we realize that “the result of the negotiations in Brussels is a German order and nothing other than blackmail”, as German politician Dietmar Bartsch from „Die Linke“ party stated on Monday. We feel it because we understand that a new version of the „Treaty of Versailles“ was written in Brussels last Monday. We feel it because we clearly understand that Merkel decided to do everything to humilate the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in order to make him and his left goverment an example for everyone in Europe after his big mistake with the referendum. „Who doesn't want to obey? Who wants to become the next Greece?“. We understand that this war's weapons are the euros paper money. And we are running out of those.


As a journalist who follows Sports, I am trying to ask a question in terms of football: after all these, how can a German football team come in Greece for a match for the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Europa League? You only need a short distance walk in a Greek street to smell the pain and to feel the hate for Merkel and Schauble, a feeling which reflects to hole Germany. This should be Europe's main concern, because we Greeks won't be the only victims of this war.