Greece hopes for payback against Germany on Euro 2012 pitch/ from:Washington Post
But he added, “What we lack in talent we make up for in other virtues. Spirit. Determination. Pride. Those are the values that represent this team and what this country needs to move ahead.”
Greece’s finances are plenty knotted. The government is broke because it borrowed too much. Local banks are broke because they loaned too much. People are broke because they thought the torrent of money that flowed into Greece when the euro was established wasrightfully earned and belonged to them. In fact, much of it was borrowed, a binge made possible by cheap interest rates set by the ECB. (Germany was growing too slowly and needed cheap credit.)
Video
In this comedy sketch from Monty Python, Germany's and Greece's most famous ancient and contemporary philosophers battle on the field not only for goals but for moral and intellectual victory.
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But the Greeks’ emotional state is even more complicated — a mix of shame at the exposure of long-standing problems such as corruption in government and the statism that still holds back the economy, anxiety about the future, embarrassment over the country’s massive public and private debt, and, of course anger over what has become a two-year lecture by the rest of Europe and the world about what they need to do.
The Germans have their point of view as well — that they shouldn’t have to pay someone else’s bills just because Germany spent the first decade of the euro working hard, investing and tuning up its economy to compete in the global market.
When the two sides qualified for the quarterfinals over the weekend, the inevitable rounds of rubbing it in began.
“Yes, They Are Afraid Of Us,” Greece’s Sport Day magazine blared in a cover headline this week. Germany’s Bild, meanwhile, sent an “undercover” reporter to the hotel where the Greek national team is staying and riffed about the fancy coffee machines they brought along and the low-brow, insult-filled way that team captain Karagounis addressed his teammates.
To fans here, the game has no downside — a loss is expected, while a win would be a boost of adrenaline and a grand in-your-face to Merkel. There are jokes about how to turn the tables more fully — borrow another half a trillion dollars from the ECB, run it all through the offshore gambling houses in a massive over-under bet on the total number of goals scored, and have the Greek goalie take a powder.
At a street-side stand, 23-year-old Stelias Parianos was selling Greek flags and Euro 2012 scarves ahead of the game. He has survived on odd jobs for the past three years, and said he’d be happy just for a close match.
“The politicians have already messed it up,” he said. “Let’s hope the players do better.”
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