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.
