Germany, it’s Argentina calling

HEIDELBERG may be the romantic soul of Germany but, until Saturday, nobody could have confused it with the beating heart of this World Cup.

Base camp for the Irish Examiner’s second round campaign, the historic town on the banks of the Neckar fills up with tourists in high summer and plays host to university students the rest of the year, but Berlin or Munich or Hamburg it is not.

At 5pm, local time, on Saturday, a kind of hush descended on Heildelberg; 90 minutes later the place was doing a fair impersonation of being the centre of the World Cup, if not the world itself.

Germany had just beaten Sweden in the first of the knock-out games in Munich, and sleepy Heidelberg erupted into the biggest, spontaneous street party it has probably ever seen. It was hard not to get caught up in the sheer joy of it all.

In short, the place went mad, reflecting, in its own modest way, the ‘fussballfieber’ which gripped the country as a whole on Saturday, with an estimated 750,000 people celebrating in the centre of Berlin alone.

The momentum had been building right from the opening victory over Costa Rica, although even then there were cold water voices expressing reservations about Germany’s ability to stand up to tougher tests. Before kick-off against Sweden, fear had turned into expectation — on television, bad boy-turned-analyst Steffen Effenberg even ditched his gaudy tops in favour of a Michael Ballack Number 13 shirt — and by the end of a one-sided game all doubts had been erased.

Germany has taken this previously much-derided team to its heart.

Everywhere, the ‘Nationalmannschaft’ (national team) has suddenly become ‘unsere mannschaft’ (our team), while the oft vilified Klinsmann, Klose and Poldolski have been turned into the nation’s favourite three amigos, Klinsi, Klosi and Poldi. Expect to see them in the Eurovision soon.

Mind you, no-one is calling Franz Beckenbauer ‘Becksi’. As President of Germany’s World Cup organising committee, Der Kaiser is now probably the most revered figure in the country, floating serenely above all the happy mayhem — and not just because he spends most of his time being choppered from game to game by World Cup sponsors Emirates airlines.

Beckenbauer, who secretly married his girlfriend on a rare day off in Austria last Friday, can do no wrong in the eyes of the German public and media; as one fan watching the match on Saturday told me, with his tongue only slightly in his cheek: “Now we have two Popes.”

This fantastic World Cup experience goes far deeper than football for a people who still live partially in the shadow of their country’s dark modern history. As a young German lawyer I met on a flight to Hamburg put it: “This is the first time in my life where I feel comfortable saying that I am proud to be German. Not just because of the team but because of the way the way the country has presented the World Cup. And many German people now feel this way. There is a wonderful mood in the country, east and west, and I just hope that it lasts after the tournament.”

More to the point, will it last past next Friday? The German team have gotten progressively stronger as the tournament has gone on and, on Saturday, simply overpowered Sweden with their forceful attacking play.

Poldolski and Klose didn’t need much help to carve up the Swedish rearguard but they got it anyway, thanks to Lucic’s harsh sending off and, saddest of all, a Baggio-style penalty blooper from Henrik Larsson in what was probably the great man’s last game for his country.

And it could have been worse for the Swedes: on more than one occasion, the Chelsea-bound Michael Ballack came close to crowning a farewell appearance in the Allianz Arena, home of his old club Bayern Munich, with a goal from distance.

But 2-0 was more than enough to keep the party rolling in Berlin, Munich, Heidelberg and all points in between. But, now that the force is firmly with Germany, the big question is where their still vulnerable defence can possibly hold out against Argentina.

Pushed to the wire by the hard-working, skilful Mexicans in Leipzig — and requiring an absolute wonder goal to shade a wonderful game — Argentina may feel they are prepared for anything.

But Argentina have a pretty impressive supporting cast too — and I don’t just mean the all-singing, all-dancing Maradona and company in the stands.

Messi, Tevez and Aimar were all outstanding when they came on against Mexico and must surely have given Jose Pekerman pause for thought as he contemplates another huge challenge at the end of the week.

Germany v Argentina in the quarter-final in Berlin — a match and a setting befitting a great World Cup. Sky Sports would call it “a massive, massive game”. For once, they’d be right.

GERMANY: Lehmann, Friedrich, Metzelder, Mertesacker, Lahm, Schweinsteiger (Borowski 72), Frings (Kehl 85), Ballack, Schneider, Podolski (Neuville 74), Klose.

Subs Not Used: Jansen, Huth, Nowotny, Hanke, Kahn, Asamoah, Hitzlsperger, Odonkor, Hildebrand.

SWEDEN: Isaksson, Alexandersson, Mellberg, Lucic, Edman, Ljungberg, Linderoth, Kallstrom (Hansson 39), Jonson (Wilhelmsson 52), Ibrahimovic (Allback 72), Larsson.

Subs Not Used: Nilsson, Anders Svensson, Alvbage, Stenman, Karl Svensson, Elmander, Andersson, Rosenberg, Shaaban.

Attendance: 66,000

Referee: Carlos Eugenio Simon (Brazil).