Satirical Carnival Float

Germany Makes Fun of England's Football Woes

By David Crossland

Germany's carnival is thumbing its nose at English football this year with a float that reflects pure, unadulterated Schadenfreude at England's failure to qualify for the European Football Championship.

In the design for the carnival float, Germany thumbs its nose at the English knight, condemned to watching the tournament on the television. The message reads: "We're Off to the European Championship Without England."

DPA

In the design for the carnival float, Germany thumbs its nose at the English knight, condemned to watching the tournament on the television. The message reads: "We're Off to the European Championship Without England."

Germany's main carnival parade this year will poke fun at England for failing to qualify for the European Football Championship in June -- with a float depicting a paper-mache English knight in football shorts watching the tournament on TV while the rest of Europe laughs at him.

The float will be paraded through Cologne on Feb. 4, Rose Monday, in a procession that usually attracts well over a million people and is broadcast nationwide.

“We often see the English as very big-headed when it comes to football, and it’s good to take a swipe at them,” Christoph Kuckelkorn, the director of the procession, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “This is my third year in the job and I’ve been trying to give the parade a little more bite.”

It's the latest salvo in an age-old footballing rivalry between the two nations that has simmered since 1966, when England won the World Cup by beating Germany 4-2. Ask any German over five about that match and they will point out that England's third goal should not have been allowed. Ask any England fan, and they will reply: "So what?"

Germany's success in football tournaments -- they have won three World Cups and three European Championships -- has proved a painfully frequent source of frustration to England fans.

Schadenfreude

Kuckelkorn said many Germans felt a touch of Schadenfreude when England failed to qualify for Euro 2008, which will be held in Austria and Switzerland.

"I don’t think Schadenfreude is peculiarly German though. Everyone feels it,” he said.

England’s defeat by Croatia in November means it will miss a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup. The news initially provoked a collective jeer in Germany. Newspaper headlines read “Football’s Staying Home” and T-shirts went on sale bearing a broken cross of St. George above the slogan "Ohne England Fahren Wir Zur EM” (“We’re Off to the European Championship Without England”).

But there is a sense of loss as well. “We’ll miss the England fans with their tattoos and their singing and drinking, they’re among the best in the world,” Christian Thiele, 41, a die-hard Bayern Munich supporter who has followed the German national team to dozens of matches, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “They keep on singing even when their team’s losing.”

Thiele said the rivalry between Germany and England was good-humored. “It’s not like with the Dutch. We really hate the Dutch.”

The carnival processions in Cologne, Düsseldorf and other western cities traditionally feature floats with satirical themes. Kuckelkorn said Chancellor Angela Merkel would be in for some ribbing this year. Some of the floats are so topical that their designs won’t be released to the press until a few days before the parade.

Much of traditionally Catholic western and southern Germany comes to a standstill during the week before Lent. The season kicks off with “Old Wives’ Day” when women cut off men’s ties in a symbolic castration ritual and storm town halls.

Cologne prides itself on being the bastion of Rhineland carnival. “The Germans have a lot of humor and we have a special kind of humor in Cologne,” said Kuckelkorn. “You have to think about it, and that makes it funnier.”

If carnival is a religion, the residents of Cologne can be classified as extremists: The inebriated revelry can make the Munich Oktoberfest look like a tea party.