Euros trophy credit: Jcer80
This is part four of a five-part series looking at Germany’s performances at the European Championships. Other parts can be found here.
Music and sport go together as well as any two objects can. The majesty of the Champions League anthem pairs perfectly with the high stakes and illustrious football that comes with it, hearing Borussia Dortmund, Celtic, or Liverpool fans sing You’ll Never Walk Alone is enough to create goosebumps, and who can forget the relentless sound of vuvuzelas at the 2010 World Cup (that might not count as music, or anything other than torture, but Shakira’s song for the tournament was great). Of course, the best example of music and football, at least in the realm of international tournaments came at Euro 96. England was right in the throws of Cool Britannia, a time when Oasis and Blur battled for supremacy in the charts, the Spice Girls would release their debut album in the same year, and popular pre-Iraq Tony Blair was a year away from sweeping John Major out of Downing Street in a landslide. It was in the middle of this that comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel joined forces with The Lightning Seeds to release the song ‘Three Lions’ ahead of the Euros to be hosted in the country. The song was instantly popular, hitting number one in the UK charts and even breaking into the German charts despite being a song about the England national team. Ask a Brit what they most remember from this tournament, and that song will be up there as one of the most popular answers.
That would of course not be the case for a German. Having made the final of Euro 92 and despite having underwhelmed at the 1994 World Cup, Germany entered the 1996 tournament as the favourites, still having a point to prove after Beckenbauer’s claim that a united Germany would be unbeatable. The pressure was going to be on from game one. They opened the tournament at Old Trafford against a Czech Republic side who weren’t expected to do much, so much so that there’s an infamous story of then Dortmund player Patrik Berger being asked about his summer plans pre-tournament, when he responded by saying he was going to the Euros, teammate Jürgen Kohler thought he meant in the stands.
In reality, Berger might as well have been in the stands as Germany rolled to a comfortable 2-0 win, the favourites scored twice in the space of six minutes, both goals quite similar. Bayern’s Christian Ziege and Dortmund’s Andreas Möller found the bottom left corner from far out of the box. After that victory, there was no reason to expect Germany to face the Czechs later on in the tournament (that’s called foreshadowing). The rest of the group was not as easy, Italy had been the runners-up at the 1994 World Cup, and Russia were not a side who were going to lie down. Except, they did. Germany won their second game 3-0 to ensure qualification nice and early. Matthias Sammer, now in his prime and soon to win the Ballon d’Or, opened the scoring before Jürgen Klinsmann added two more. Germany were already through having won both games and not conceded, not great news for an Italy side who needed results to go their way if they wanted to qualify. A 0-0 draw meant that Berti Vogts’ side still hadn’t conceded and that Italy were out.
It would have been hard at this point to deviate from the idea that Germany were still the tournament favourites as they entered a now-expanded knockout system. The Euros had increased in size again, from eight sides in 1992 to sixteen in 96. That meant the quarter-finals for the first time and a battle against Group D runners-up Croatia. Featuring many players from the Yugoslavia side who were denied a place at Euro 92, they demolished reigning champions Denmark 3-0 but were themselves beaten by the same score against group winners Portugal. Croatia played a rough and tumble game that nowadays would result in multiple red cards, back then it resulted in one. Igor Štimac was sent off shortly after Davor Šuker equalised for the Croats. A prior Klinsmann penalty and a goal from Sammer would be enough for a not-at-their-best Germany to get through at Old Trafford to the semi-finals.
For the first time in the tournament, Germany would leave Manchester and travel down to Wembley to take on hosts England. Terry Venables and co had made it to the last four despite not being very good for most of the tournament. Bar a great 4-1 win over the Netherlands in the group stage: they had drawn with Switzerland, beat Scotland despite being poor for the opening 55 minutes, and then had more than their fair share of luck against Spain in the quarters. Gijon’s Julio Salinas had a perfectly good goal ruled out for an erroneous offside, and Alfonso should have probably been given a penalty after that. Instead, the match went to penalties and England actually won by converting all four of their kicks (more on that later).
In 1975, the legendary British show Fawlty Towers aired an episode called ‘The Germans.’ The sixth of the show, it would best be remembered for the line “Don’t mention the war.” It would have perhaps been a good idea for the British tabloid press, known for their world-class journalism (that’s sarcasm by the way) to stick to that sound piece of advice as they went all in on the war rhetoric and metaphors. The ‘rivalry’ between England and Germany has always been asymmetrical, Germans had been enjoying the tournament and as mentioned earlier, its classic song, but this was something that made the atmosphere more tense heading into the game, and only served as bulletin board material for the guests.
Despite that, England opened the game as the better side and opened the scoring. Alan Shearer, who had a terrible record before the tournament, scored his fifth of the Euros. That was after just three minutes, which meant that Germany had 87 to get back into the game. They needed 13. Stefan Kuntz, a name many Englishmen pronounce incorrectly, perhaps on purpose, would slide in to tap a Thomas Helmer cross over the line. The rest of the game would descend into a chess match, neither side wanting to make a mistake, leading to golden goal extra-time. A rarely used feature in football nowadays, golden goal meant that if anyone scored, the game would immediately end. It was England who were closer to doing that. Darren Anderton hit the post and Paul Gascoigne couldn’t quite get his foot on the ball for what would have been an open-goal tap-in. That meant penalties. Ten were taken, ten were scored. Gareth Southgate would step up as a volunteer to take penalty number six for England, and eleven in total. His attempt was poor and saved by Eintracht Frankfurt’s Andreas Köpke, a defining moment in English football history (in all fairness – Southgate turned that miss into a pretty lucrative Pizza Hut commercial and what’s more important at the end of the day?) That meant Andreas Möller could send Germany through to the final, which he did with a perfect spot kick. As Germany had done six years prior in Turin, they had knocked out England on penalties in a semi-final to advance. What goes around comes around and Germany’s final opponents in the tournament were the same as their first opponents, against the odds, they would be facing the Czech Republic.
So how exactly did the Czechs come back from that opening match defeat to make the final? Their second game would see them take on Italy, following a 2-1 win against Russia, legendary manager Arrigo Sacchi decided to heavily rotate his squad for match number two. He shouldn’t have. A still-unknown Pavel Nedvěd opened the scoring in the fifth minute and the Czechs eventually won 2-1, helped by a red card to Luigi Apolloni. Having gone 2-0 up and 3-2 down against Russia, an 88th-minute equaliser from Liverpool’s Vladimír Šmicer saw them through. They then got through the quarters thanks to the goal of the tournament from Karel Poborský and beat France on penalties in the semis.
Many of the Czech Republic’s players would go on to have great careers in the sport, Nedved would win the Ballon d’Or in 2003, and Karel Poborský, Patrik Berger, and Vladimír Šmicer would all go on to play for some of Europe’s biggest clubs, but this was their big chance to really introduce themselves on the international stage. Germany meanwhile entered expecting to win the game and not fall victim to another upset like they did in 92. They were in for a rude awakening. Having played mostly defensive football up until this point, the Czechs flew out of the gate and were the much better side, eventually opening the scoring thanks to a Patrik Berger penalty (I wonder if Jürgen Kohler, part of the German national team – was now aware of Berger’s summer plans). Granted, it should have never been a penalty as the foul occurred outside the box but VAR was still 22 years away. Germany were running out of answers as the game ticked into the 69th minute, their last hope was Udinese’s Oliver Bierhoff. The striker who made his breakthrough at Bayer Uerdingen would probably admit to not being the best striker in the world. When in the Bundesliga through the early stages of his career, he didn’t do much, just 10 goals in 65 games was a mediocre return. However, after stints in the Austrian Bundesliga and Serie B, he would suddenly improve following a 1995 move to Udine, registering 17 goals in Serie A at a time when the Italian top flight was still known for its incredibly tough defending.
He would continue his new-found goalscoring form in the final, heading in a Christian Ziege cross just four minutes after coming on. That meant extra time and another chance for a golden goal finish. What came next, the crowning moment for the German national team, wasn’t actually that good, at least from a footballing perspective. In the 95th minute, Bierhoff’s shot would first deflect off defender Michal Horňák and then goalkeeper Petr Kouba for the most important, but least impressive goal of the tournament. With that, Germany had won the Euros for the third time in their history, but it was the first time a united Germany would be lifting a trophy. Jürgen Klinsmann, a man who had played in London previously, was handed the trophy by Queen Elizabeth II and the celebrations began. It was finally an achievement for manager Berti Vogts, who had proven that a united Germany could in fact be unstoppable at a tournament. Not that it would be enough for the former Gladbach man. Vogts had a short fuse when it came to dealing with the press, and often didn’t like himself or his players to take the blame for problems, which meant journalists were less than sympathetic when Vogts failed in both the 1994 and 1998 World Cup. This success in 1996 therefore was not enough. Beckenbauer had not just set Vogts up for defeat with his words, Vogts was also expected to match the success of his predecessor, which he couldn’t do.
It couldn’t have been known on that London summer night of 1996, but some dark years were ahead for Germany. That night, Die Nationalmannschaft became the first side to lift the European Championships for a third time, whilst England fans were singing about football coming home, German fans perhaps had the right to sing about the trophy coming home as well.
Find all parts of Germany at the Euros here.
Part One – Debut Win: The Story of Euro 72
Part Two – Football in a Changing World: The Story of Euro 88
Part Three – An Unexpected Challenger: The Story of Euro 92
Part Five – The Start of Something Special: The Story of Euro 2008
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