Germans no longer score penalties and that’s a problem

Or: why the only thing we’ve got left is bloody great bread…

This is a text I wrote a while back (2023). I think it is as relevant as ever. Enjoy.

The art of German penalty taking is a serious matter. The English regard it with both a sense of despair and admiration. Despair, because the Germans tend to win against England in penalty shootouts. Admiration, because the Germans do this in such an efficient manner. ‘It’s impossible for a German to miss a penalty’, a friend from England once told me. What he really meant to say was: ‘Why are you Germans so damn efficient all the time?’

As a matter of fact, ‘being efficient’ used to describe the German identity quite well. However, two things have changed drastically. For one thing, Germany doesn’t score in penalty shootouts anymore, which is probably linked to the circumstance that we no longer make it past the group stages in World Cups. Secondly, and sorry to disappoint you: Even German efficiency is no longer real. It’s nothing but an outdated reputation.

‘Made in Germany’ is tumbling

You might think of Germany as the country with the best engineers, a long tradition for fast, solid and modern cars, efficiency in its institutions. The truth is: Germany has become a terribly inefficient country with broken airports and train stations, black holes in digitalisation and despondent leaders. Germany has become a difficult affair. A bit like a ticket machine in a German train station: There are hundreds of tariffs and options, but the chance of picking the correct one is slim to none. Oh, and don’t forget to stamp your ticket before boarding the train, otherwise its useless and a not so friendly ticket inspector (who doesn’t speak English) will take lots of money from you.

Unfortunately, German inefficiency is more severe than an old ticket machine. Russia’s terrible war against Ukraine has revealed the catastrophic mistakes of German foreign policy over the past decades. In short, the idea was to bring about ‘Wandel durch Handel’, change through trade, with countries like Russia or China. The trade part worked for many years: Germany received incredibly cheap gas from Russia, which powered its energy gobbling industry and kept German homes warm in cold winters. The change part, however, did not work. Russia is killing its neighbours and China is about to do the same with Taiwan in a matter of years. And to make things even more grim: The trade part is now also dwindling. The gas pipelines from Russia have dried up and China isn’t that keen anymore on German products, which challenges the our business model as a whole.

Now, many companies are looking elsewhere, such as to the US, to open new plants or offices and all of a sudden, Germany just doesn’t seem so attractive anymore. As a matter of fact, in 2023, no German company is ranked amongst the top 100 companies worldwide in terms of market capitalisation. A twitter user asked recently: ‘For how long is the world still willing to pay lots of money for German products from the 19th or 20th century?’ A very good question, to which the international trading community is currently finding an answer and it doesn’t look good: ‘Made in Germany’ is tumbling and the only thing we’ve managed to keep up (for now) is our unique talent for baking fantastic bread.

Scholz is a ‘political dwarf’

If you ask international experts about their opinions on Germany, most of them come to the same conclusion: Germany is an arrogant player within the European Union. For many years, German politicians didn’t miss an opportunity to shake hands with the Russian president Wladimir Putin, ignoring the clear warnings and security interests of countries like Poland, Ukraine or the Baltics. And in terms of money, Germany remains a bully on the European stage.

The former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, told me recently: ‘Germany insists on maintaining for itself a fiscal capacity that the rest of the Eurozone does not have. In other words, it is violating the principle of a level playing field across the European Union.’ He also went on to describe current German chancellor Olaf Scholz as a ‘political dwarf’. I haven’t yet decided whether that is a true or not. But maybe the most interesting thing that Varoufakis had to say, was about the former German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Varoufakis, who watched Merkel closely at the height of the Greek debt crisis in 2015, says that she was a ‘remarkably skilful negotiator’. And then he went on to say something else: ‘She had the unique capacity to make sure that nothing changes, even when it had to change. In that sense she wasted enormous political capital. No other chancellor will ever have the capacity to create the political capital that is necessary to steer Europe away from stagnation. So we have to condemn her for wasting it.’

But the truth is, Merkel only attended to what most Germans wanted: As little change, as possible. In a recent poll, chancellor Olaf Scholz tops the ranking of the most popular politicians in Germany.

The reason? Germans like his steady and calm course. However, if we want to be successful in the future, then change is exactly what we need. We are in desperate need of modern schools, intensive carers for our health system, refurbished train tracks and a believable push towards green energy. So if we not only want to make it past the group stages in World Cups again, but also want to become a role model on the international stage, then we need courageous politicians. Maybe, they should take a penalty kick once in a while. It would teach them, that it’s about conviction, taking a chance, making a decision, picking a corner and then seeing it through. Sometimes you miss, which leads to despair, but if you score, then you’ll be met with admiration.