World Cup 2026

Houston Airport, June 15

It was a remarkable day. Tino managed to get the 6 am flight from Washington, to arrive in Houston 8.30, picking an Uber, heading over to the Hotel, dropping his gear, straight to the Stadium, which is nothing else than a modern day cathedral to the ruling American religion, sports. A Colosseum of the 21st century, humongous in size, high tech screens, a ferocious sound system, perfect views from all angles. Stunning. A level on its own.
The stadium sold out, I’d guess 90%of the fans in German colors non Germans, strong turnout of Indian, Asian and African fans, but first of all: Americans with some kind of connection to the Fatherland. A touching experience…I couldn’t help but remember a motorbike ride through Russia a decade ago, where I drove through villages in the Volga region, where Germans settled, or were forced to settle, a century ago. Different ideas of „Germany“ met and mirrored each other in each other….worth to write a book…

7 goals. Plenty to celebrate. Painful 15 minutes after the 1:1, that kicked off painful memories from days in Russia, and Qatar, especially Russia, where a World Champion arrived, and only 12 days later a beaten humiliated underdog returned home…Thank God those memories didn’t stay long, latest Havertz penalty calmed the worrying German football fans souls around me. But, you could feel the trauma…

Now, surprisingly enough I do believe even more than before that this team has no realistic chance to win this tournament. Limitations, lack of skill and too many players not on World Class levels will not allow that. Musiala would be needed in his best form, but he’s a shadow of what he was before his injury. Sane is painful to see. Tah and Schlotterbeck produce predictable mistakes under pressure. Germanys best striker right now sits on the bench, and Nagelsmann is creating always new reasons why Undav belongs there. The Mannschaft was shining against a team that wasn’t competitive and shows the problems of an enlarged tournament: the fans were fantastic, the country was proud and perceived, the team was not on par.

There is another aspect of this new found size that hurts a romantic like me: there are way too many games. With 4 games a day, up to 8 are possible, it is just no option anymore to follow the competition, analyze teams, identify favorites, build new love relations to flamboyant surprise squads. Everything drowns under a mass of games, played at any time, in any time zone. The game takes a step back, the event dominates.

Our flights got cancelled today to NYC 6 hours before departure, without any reason given, and a hectic search followed for replacement seats, that ended in us rushing to Houston Airport without a coffee even, managing to get seats on a plane which is now standing since 90 minutes on the rollfield of Mr President Bushˋs own airport in thunder, lightning and pouring rain. This comes after the missed flight of Tino and my delayed and then cancelled second leg from Mexico. 3 flights, 3 misses. I never thought I’d miss Lufthansa one day….Boston tonight, to pick up the bikes tomorrow morning, and then a new chapter in this journey begins..

A peace agreement in Iran announced. A possible end of fighting for Lebanon, and for Lucas, which means more than a football game, much more…