Mind your language

“IT being the weekend and all,” purred the commander-in-chief down the blower, “we’d like another of your Letter from Germany yokes, preferably with a stamp attached this time as proof that you’re actually out there and not, as some of us suspect, watching it all in a pub in Kinnegad, only ever putting down your drink in order to file another massive mileage claim.”

Ah yes, he knows me well.

And, you know, today I really did plan to write a thoughtful and erudite piece about Germany and the Germans, treating of politics and culture as well as sport, alluding to the strikingly benign sense of national pride and unity which has been generated by their team’s success in this World Cup, and liberally sprinkling the whole thing with some putative Houlihanesque descriptive flourishes — lyrical stuff, as seen from the window of a passing train, about the way the Rhine insinuates itself between lushly forested slopes, with every other bend in the great waterway offering up the breathtaking sight of an ancient castle surmounting a soaring peak. Begob, I was going to be on such a roll, that I’m pretty confident I would have gotten the word ‘zeitgeist’ in there somewhere too.

But everything changed when I checked into my hotel in Hamburg late on Thursday night, having earlier watched Italy take care of the Czech Republic in at the AOL Arena. (For further serious football analysis, consult Murphy The Dog).

Of course, I know what you’re thinking: hack arrives in Hamburg and barely takes time to drop his laptop in his room before he’s off down the Reeperbahn like a mad thing, his pathetic cover story, don’t you know, that he was only going there to see where The Beatles played those famous gigs. And why not? At the very least, I could have written an upbeat touristy piece about one of Europe’s most famous red light districts — “the sinful mile” — if for no other reason than to justify the headline, ‘Don’t Fear The Reeperbahn’.

But that’s not going to happen either, and all because of a little brochure I discovered in my hotel room minutes after unlocking the door for the first time. An official hotel publication in a serious green cover, it is entitled ‘Information Booklet for WM 2006 in Hamburg’, and its content is equally split between German and English.

But not English as we know it, Jim.

Before proceeding, I ought to make it clear that, as is so often the experience of the roving Irish correspondent in Europe, I am repeatedly humbled here in Germany by the easy facility with which the locals speak my tongue, in stark contrast to the pitiful baby squawks which is all I can muster in theirs.

But, happily, there are exceptions to everything. Leafing through my Hamburg information booklet, I come upon a section entitled ‘Football ABC’ and, frankly, all I can say is that it spectacularly nails the myth that the beautiful game is the commonly understood language of the world. I don’t know if the thing was put through a wonky computer translation programme or simply devised by the ghost of Peter Cook but, either way, I began reading it with an arched eyebrow, quickly degenerated into loud and uncontrollable honking, and finally passed an entire ham sandwich through my nose just at the point where the paramedics were rushing up the stairs to deal with reports of a guest suffering some kind of catastrophic fit in Room 207.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are some verbatim highlights: “Dribbling: Dribbling is called freely translated as much as ‘ball leading’ and is an indispensable component for a good technology. It is important that the ball is led completely closely at the foot. Best it is natural, if the player is in addition able to lead with both feet directly well the ball. Then opponents have it particularly heavily to take off the ball.”

Quite, but we’re only getting going… “Header: Yes, it is called football, but as everybody knows, maybe played the ball also with the head. Under normal circumstances, the ball should be met with the Front Range. A good technology is here also terribly important, because a wrongly implemented header can hurt horribly.”

Better put down that fork and rasher for this one… “Self-goal: With a play that is as fast as football and into only short instants be crucial can, it passes naturally also errors. One of the most unfortunate errors is the self-goal. The defender acts with best intention, in order to prevent a goal chance of the opponent, but the border between fair removing and self-goal is very thin.”

Now, if you’re still upright, here’s one that could have been written for old Jurgen Klinsmann himself… “Swallow: If a player pretends a Foul of his direct opponent and falls himself, then one speaks of a swallow. One uses here calculated this bird name, because swallows have the characteristic to fly very deeply over the ground. Even exactly it is the same as football players in this case do. Swallows are punished by referees in the meantime by yellow cards.”

Nearly time to call the medics, I think… “Mid-forward: He is the foremost aggressor of his team. He should go in accordance with an often used soccer player utterance, ‘always there where it hurts’. Therefore by the defenders is also hardest attacked.”

We’ll finish (for now) with this… “Yellow-Red-Card Traffic Lights: After yellow follows red. So simply it can be done. This means to go showering a bit early as former thought for this player. With the professionals he is blocked automatically for the next obligation play in the next obligation match in the respective competition. Before introduction of the yellow-red card traffic lights, there was a red map.”

A red map? No, I haven’t got a clue either.

Or, distressing knowledge self-goal score I incomprehensibly.

As they say in Germany.