FreeDuck wrote:
I don't hate the Germans, I just don't like to watch them play. I'm generalizing here, but they tend to use their size advantage by playing long balls a lot. It's tactically smart, just boring to watch.
You are describing English, Irish, Scottish and US style of play.
Germany has an undefined style. Some German clubs play with the ball on the ground and short passes (Standfussball); others, play English style, with long balls and crosses to the area. The National team plays a strange mixture of those.
The essence of German football is much more in what it doesn't do: it hates "Querpass", (square pass), which is to move the ball around without moving the ball much forward (like Mexico, or Croatia). It loves "Beinshuss", which it to mark very strongly and closely the opponent, and a "torgefärlich" attitude: to be dangerous in front of the arch.
We must add to this a touch of philosophy (they wouldn't be Germans, would they?). "The ball is round", they say, quoting Sepp Harberger, meaning that's the only certainty on the game. You haven't won or lost until the "Schlusspfiff": the final whistle. That's why we never see a German team enveloped in Nietschean pessimism when it's behind. The German machine whistles and whistles, whether they are locals or visitors, whether it's hot, rainy or cold, whether they're losing, drawing or winning by seven goals, because - as Arabian goalie Al-Daeyea knows too well-, there is always room for an eighth.
It may be not fun to root for the German team (very few people do, outside the Germans), but you cannot but admire them.
