The year was 1982, Seville, Spain. Platini’s France and Rummenigge’s West Germany have finished ninety minutes of regulation time, and two periods of extra time, tied 3–3. It has been an epic match, one of the greatest games in World Cup history, and for the first time a semi-final will be decided by penalties. The Germans must have been licking their chops. Germans don’t miss penalties, until Uli Stielike does.
Germany’s penalty kick success came from emotional control, suppression of fear, internal discipline and belief in inevitability. Penalties were the moment when Germany’s national football character, the myth of German football steel, became visible in its purest form. And then, after one of the hardest-fought matches ever for the German Eleven, with Rummenigge hobbling off the bench injured to score and Klaus Fischer hitting the overhead kick he’d rehearsed his whole life, Stielike misses.
He falls to the ground, face in the grass, sobbing, covering his face in shame. The two players who pick him up from the ground, Toni Schumacher and Pierre Littbarski, console him. The rest of the team seemingly stands frozen, as if Stielike has broken a sacred oath. You could feel the tension through the screen. Some of the German players looked as if, in another era, they’d have delivered a merciful coup de grâce.
Then Schumacher does the impossible and saves two penalty kicks. He shakes his fist in the air defiantly at the French while nodding to his teammate Stielike, as Littbarski, holding Stielike up, jumps around joyously, and suddenly the entire emotional order of the team snaps back into place. Stielike is “redeemed,” the shame is forcibly wiped clean and the old German football myth reasserts itself. That’s why that moment is unforgettable. It wasn’t just football, it was a Wagnerian ritual of death and resurrection, only without the grail, because Paolo Rossi and Italy walked off with that later.
Today, if a German player misses a penalty, he posts a smiling apology on Instagram and gets a “stay strong bro” reply from the federation account. It’s just a different time and a different society. The Stielike moment belongs to a Germany that no longer exists, literally, as he was on the West German team, the most successful national soccer program of the Cold War era.
I’m arguing that German football can be framed as a sociological arc. And Germans, please, I am arguing as a Germany and Mannschaft-lover myself, take a look at my last name, OK? Ich kann Deutsch sprechen, obwohl ich in Chicago geboren wurde.
As West Germany, it was a nation that played with existential urgency because it had existential urgency. From 1954 to 1990, West Germany’s greatness came from a lineage of leaders who embodied the same national goal and desire: Fritz Walter’s postwar stoicism, Uwe Seeler’s relentless will, Franz Beckenbauer’s imperial calm, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s heroic defiance, Lothar Matthäus’s cold authority… different generations but the same fire.
Every generation carried the weight of a divided nation, the burden of history and the need to prove something to the world. That pressure forged football steel. In ten World Cups they produced three World Cup Championships, and they reached the top four teams eight out of ten times.
The great, proud moment of national relief, unification in October 1990, was also the moment the fire starting going out. The unified German team has been technically competent but spiritually hollow. Sterile possession, no incisiveness, no hunger, no risk, little fire in their belly. There have been flashes since reunification, but they have come largely from players who did not grow up inside the comfortable, post-historical German mainstream, from immigrants and children of immigrants who still had something to prove.
But, the whole point of this essay is that this is a good thing. This is a positive thing for Germany. This version of the German team is clearly the most diverse looking team in its history. It has amazing diversity. Gut gemacht, Vaterland! That is definitely something to be proud of. Be more proud of this than whether you win some lousy soccer game in a lousy FIFA tournament.
Indeed, the Özil/Khedira/Boateng era briefly brought back that chip-on-the-shoulder energy. But once those players became symbols of a relaxed, cosmopolitan, self-satisfied Germany, even that edge softened. A nation that no longer needs football to express its honor to the world will never again produce a team that plays as if its life depends on it. That is, in many ways, a good thing. Yes Germans, please, I am saying it is a good thing.
The reasons for the team’s extraordinary excellence from 1954 to 1990 were geopolitical and clearly not sustainable beyond unification. It is time for fans of the Mannschaft to come back down to earth and recalibrate their expectations, especially after the team was knocked out of three successive World Cups by South Korea, Japan and Paraguay.
The joke among my football buddies is that this World Cup was expanded as a thank-you to the German teams of the past, to ensure there is enough weak opposition in the first round to help the German Eleven advance this time. (I chastised them for saying that! „Zeigt doch etwas Respekt für die frühere Spitzenleistung!“) If you remove the Turkish-origin striker Deniz Undav, elimination might have been a distinct possibility anyway.
The 1954 World Cup victory was a symbol for an entire society. Germany had been a despised nation in Europe because of World War II and had been banned from international sports immediately afterward. The 1954 World Cup was their football team’s first real chance to prove themselves and show that Germany was back on the world stage in a meaningful and constructive manner.
Through the fierce dedication and raw will shown by its footballers (and possibly steroids, courtesy of a team doctor who said it was Vitamin C injections, leaving eight players, after the tournament, with severe jaundice and two ultimately dead from liver cirrhosis), the team represented a moral resurgence. The German people celebrated their return to the world stage. The war was behind them, the Nazis had been punished and there was new leadership and a new direction. The victory represented a kind of Year One.
The unbeatable 1990 team with Matthäus, Voeller, Klinsmann, Brehme and the other stars, was, basically, a West German team. After 1990, we switch from a West German to a unified German team. This is when things change forever. This is when German football begins to suck a bit. It seems to suck a bit now. They couldn’t beat Ecuador or Paraguay in 2026.
In 1994, Bulgaria eliminated Germany. In 1998, it was Croatia. In 2002, they fielded a weak team blessed with an easy schedule that was manhandled by Brazil in the final – take Oliver Kahn out of the picture and the humiliation would have come earlier. In 2006, they rode a wave of euphoria as hosts, getting the usual boost home countries can expect from FIFA, but crashed out to Italy. Coach Klinsmann’s refusal to start Kahn looked, to many of us, like an ego thing; with Kahn, they might have won 2006. Kahn was a throwback, with fire in his belly.
In 2010, they played an anemic match against Spain and went out. In 2014, all the pieces finally fell together, but the title still hinged on a fluke: a sensational goal by a player who had been mercilessly mocked by a rival German club’s fans as a “fat fairy.” In 2018, they were bounced by South Korea, a team with fire in its belly. In 2022, they were bounced by Japan, another team with fire in its belly.
In 2026, they conceded an equalizer to Curaçao before going berserk and running up the score to humiliate an island nation, which was not humiliated at all, but proud to have equalized. They then barely beat Ivory Coast thanks to the Gerd Müller-like efforts of a striker of Turkish background, Deniz Undav. They lost to Ecuador. Did I mention Paraguay?
Once again, a player from outside the comfortable German mainstream was carrying the team, as much as he could. Basically, lovers of the Mannschaft: your team became softer because your history stopped hurting. And that’s a good thing! The players who still resemble the old West German archetype, the ones with something to prove, with pressure in their lives, have been trying to save the program, but it’s been an uphill battle.
So what is the solution? There is none. You don’t need a solution, the situation is quite good! The Germans had a reason to be the greatest team in the world from 1954 to 1990. A different reason resurfaced briefly around 2010, but that was contingent and unstable. Brazil and Argentina are perennial favorites because they still draw from a struggling working class that produces players with that fire in their bellies and something to prove. South Korea and Japan carry the weight of Asian expectations…it’s all about desire.
History and sociology fueled German football’s desire, and certain inspirational players tapped into this and created something extraordinary. A unified and integrated Germany, where immigrants are increasingly welcomed into the dominant culture, will continue Germany’s social progress but, perhaps, may not ensure the football success of the Cold War past.
So let’s all celebrate “sucky” German football, it is a manifestation of how Germany continues to change for the better. Ein Prosit, ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit! Here’s a toast to you Germany, and to your future!
But, let’s also be honest, and as an American guy I would be remiss in not mentioning this: German soccer folks and fans have openly mocked American soccer/football for a long time. There is a concept called karma, my German football lovers. To a certain generation of football fans outside of Europe, there might be an undeniably delicious irony in this collapse, a feeling of “karma has a flawless memory.” I don’t feel this way, but I’m just saying…I think it’s called Schadenfreude.
For decades, American soccer was a frequent punchline for German players, fans and pundits alike, dismissed with a smirk as a secondary sport in a nation that just didn’t “get” the beautiful game. So, watching a powerhouse nation that once mocked American footballing culture slide into its own era of stagnation might also be perceived as a cosmic balancing of the scales. I prefer the sociological approach.
But, in a sport where arrogance is a dangerous currency, watching a giant stumble against teams they once would have brushed aside proves that what goes around eventually comes back around. If you spent years teasing others for not being part of the global elite, it turns out that losing your own competitive edge might bite a little harder. Die Mannschaft…you blew three penalty kicks against Paraguay.
Es tut mir leid, ich konnte nicht widerstehen. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Nice theory, but how does it explains the current success of France and Spain? What do they have to prove that Germany does not?
Thanks for reading my article and for your friendly and sincere question.
I’m going to say that different teams succeed according to different combinations of factors. I didn’t want to imply that everyone has to follow the model for success I proposed for the Germans from 54 to 90.
France and Spain operate under their own unique organizational and cultural factors so I am not sure about what might be driving their success.
This does give me the opportunity to do something I wish I had done in the article – present some stats.
West German team: 3 out of 10 World Cups, 8 out of 10 final four appearances.
Unified German team: 1 out of 9 World Cups, 4 out of 9 final four appearances.
I asked a software program to crunch the numbers and there is only a five per cent chance that a team can place 8 out of 10 times in the final 4 in 10 consecutive World Cups.
That’s such a low percentage that a statistician would have to say, “Yep, that is not normal, something must have happened to give us those numbers.” So what jumps out to me when I see 1954 to 1990 is the Cold War. I think any reasonable researcher or sociology wonk would want to consider something about the Cold War as a factor in West Germany’s success.
In any case, thank you again – I am grateful for your curiosity about this issue, sorry that I haven’t studied France or Spain enough to answer you. Your question might actually be a good idea for another article if you know much about those programs. Maybe there is something sociological going on there!