World Cup 2026

Hudson Valley, July 1

This is the third trip now over 8 years to a World Cup, that is coming to an unexpected early stop. The disappointment is less burning then after the first exits, which came unexpected, from nowhere, they hurt in a different way. This one was not a surprise really. The lack of quality and the low spirits have been so obvious during the tournament, that the question was basically if we reach the Round of last 16 to get slaughtered by France or not.
Now, as long as I watch Football over the major tournaments there have been discussions by people smarter than me if the fortunes of a national team do give us hints or ideas about the condition a nation is in, the mood, the level of optimism, the capabilities. Did the decline of the English team over the decades find a parallel in the post war struggles of the shrinking former empire? Did the German triumphs of 1954, 1974 and 1990 mirror the start and the manifestation of the German post war recovery and finally reunification? Are the improving results of the Non-European nations signs for the end of the dominance of the global north? Or are these possible connections simply made up narratives, more accidental then scientific?I don’t know…

What I do know though is that the qualities, characteristics of the National Team have changed over the decades, and that there are remarkably similar debates happening on a political level.
‘Germany has always had a physically robust, resilient team with a high dominance in one on ones, and who saw the game against Ivory Coast, which looked like a school team (us) playing men saw this was a thing of the past. The Germany I know was a team with a high mental resilience, calm under pressure, with an unlimited believe in its own capabilities. The fact that we never lost a penalty shoot out before, and the striking nervousness and lack of self esteem from a few days ago showed the changes.
Now, VW, a long time partner of the National Team for a reason, announced a few days ago it’ll cut 60.000 jobs, unimaginable news just a few years ago. The car industry, backbone and symbol of German industrial strength for decades, is fighting for survival. Economic resilience and stability, long a globally admired trait of our country, have left the building. And the unease about a possible decline of the country, that has grown over the last years silently and with the mighty force of rising water, goes further. How did it happen that a society that has been famous for its willingness to debate and align finds itself torn and fractured along political questions so aggressively since years? What has happened, that a country, often belittled for its post Prussian respect for authorities sees a fast growing number of teachers, police, public servants attacked, threatened and disrespected? Where did the nearly Japanese devotion to work, the identification with our employers, the lust for quality go and when did mediocrity take over?

If we are not the country anymore of Briegel, Foerster, Matthaeus and Brehme anymore, and if we don’t produce these figures anymore, who are we then? What will replace it? What’s the idea? How will a new successful team look like? Or have we started to witness the beginning of a decline, a decline that has gripped England after the stolen final of 1966, and that might not even stop for Brazil? And it can’t be ignored that the country as a whole, in a depression since years, has to answer the same question: if we are not the cohesive, united, inventive and work oriented industrial nation of post war glory anymore: what are we then?

We have taken the bikes to a serene place, the Hudson valley and the Catskills, to digest for a few days, to enjoy the beauty of what is and what has always been, Mother Nature and a motorbike engine, and will head to boiling Boston and New York this weekend to return the bikes, join in the parades of the 4th of July and the festivities of another struggling nation, and then to return home, to write a new chapter in the history of the Circus.

Thanks for joining in this story, and see you soon…