The much-discussed fuss about the "One Love" bandage at the 2022 World Cup was apparently much more explosive in the German team than previously assumed. Sport1 revealed new and highly explosive information on Sunday.
The DFB's PR campaign regarding the "One Love" bandage turned out to be a disaster, which apparently also played a large part in the sporting performance of the German national team at the World Cup in Qatar. After FIFA banned the wearing of the bandage and threatened severe sanctions, things "really banged" in the German team shortly before the opening game against Japan, as Sport1 reporter Patrick Berger revealed in the "double pass" on Sunday.
"It was a huge issue in the team," Berger made clear. "This theater - one day before the Japan game -, sat for an hour in the team hotel - there was a real bang in this session," Berger described the inner workings of the "One Love" debate in the German team. Apparently, the team did not find a consensus on how to deal with the FIFA ban so close to the opening game. "There were several factions. There was the Leon Goretzka and Manuel Neuer faction, who see themselves as leaders with strong opinions, who of course also said before the tournament: 'We have to set an example as a team'. And there was the Gündogan and Rüdiger faction, who said, 'we want to focus on football, we don't want to do that'." From this it appears that there were disagreements about wearing the armband even before the tournament, which was caused by FIFA's reaction so close to the prelude, have been significantly tightened again. Berger explained the impact that had. "It is even said that players ran out of this team meeting and said: 'I can't do this anymore'."
Seen in this light, the debate about the "One Love" armband seems to have played a huge part in the disappointing performance of the German national team at the World Cup. In an effort to find a solution, the team finally agreed on the gesture of covering their mouth during the team photo. "Then this lowest common denominator was to say, we do this 'shut your mouth' symbol. At first there were ideas from the DFB to make this heart symbol, which Goretzka once did," concluded Berger. The Sport1 reporter added that there was "extreme World Cup mood" in the country. According to Berger, the nations that were less represented in Qatar were Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. The other nations and teams would have been more free from the social debate.
Berger's reporting shows how big the fiasco about the "One Love" debate in the DFB team actually was. Not only did it have an enormous impact on the sporting performance, it was also not what the team wanted as a whole. It seems as if the German national team's topic of "making a mark" wasn't fish, not meat. From this point of view, the DFB should have dealt with the issue in a completely different way; the team would have needed a consensus before the tournament as to the extent to which they wanted to actively shape the social discourse or - as the Antonio Rüdiger and Ilkay Gündogan factions demanded and as most other national teams do - concentrate on the sporting side.
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This article was originally published on 90min.de as "Has right banged" - Sport1 reveals explosive details about the "One Love" debate in the DFB team.
