Today I would like to share with you a bit of my grief that comes from a bitter defeat of my favorite soccer club, FC Bayern München, in
the final of the UEFA Chamions League of 2012. This competition is as (or more) prestigious for soccer at the European level (which is organized by Union Fédérale de Football Association, or UEFA) as the NFL Super Bowl is for American Football. The high reputation is derived from it being a competition of teams that are holding their respective national chamionship title from the
previous season. (To be exact, since the inception of the CL also non-champions from high-ranking European leagues, such as Spain, England, Italy, Germany etc., have been admitted in favor of the champions of not so strong leagues, such as Luxemburg, Belgium etc. These teams play either a second tier competition known as the Europa League, or they may enter the CL through an extended qualification stage prior to the actual start.) - Munich has been my preferred team since the early 1980s, the times of
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, then a striker star, and nowadays the CEO of the club. The team, while being the record champion, is not liked well by everyone, for advocating its own superiority on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, a true fan doesn't change his or her favorite team, and thus I am stuck with these guys ... So imagine my excitement when they went all the way to the final of the Chamions League of 2012. To understand the importance of this feat, you need to know that Munich, in order to meet their own standards, requires to win at least one title per year, and after coming in second in both the German Bundesliga and the German national cup, the Champions League was supposed to save the day. To add some cream on top, the final was being held in Munich in 2012, while it rotates every year to a new location (of international standing, of course). The opponent of Munich was Chelsea FC from London, owned as a pet project of Russian oligarch
Roman Abramowich. This man has invested literally almost one billion Euro in his team, which for a few times in a row made it to the CL semifinals, where they got kicked out. So this occasion was the last chance for a few players who had been with Chelsea since the arrival of Mr. Abramovich to win this prestigious cup. Given that Chelsea had such an expensive roster their style of playing was a noteable disappointment; they made no attempt of scoring a goal and simply tried to keep it at a 0 - 0, hoping for a single successful counterattack to end the game with a lucky punch. With the offense of Chelsea practially non-existent, Bayern pushed forward, yet did not score a goal until seven minutes before the end of the regulaer time. Normally this would be the end of the story. But this time Chelsea striker
Didier Drogba evened the score with a header after Chelsea's first (!) corner kick three minutes before the end of the regular 90 minutes. This meant extra time, 2 x 15 minutes. In the first half of the extra time Bayern received a penalty kick (a free kick from 11 meters from the goal, with no defender save the goalie being allowed to be even inside the penalty box). Such a chance would normally mean a dead sure goal, and thus the end of the story if Bayern doesn't allow another goal against. Unfortunately the player for Munich,
Arjen Robben, failed to strike, after a previous miss in the decisive game against Borussia Dortmund, which permitted Dortmund to defend their national title. Hence, the CL final went on, and after the end of the extra 2 x 15 min, there was a penalty shootout. This means, at first there are five alternating penalty shots from each team (which allows to even the score within those five shots), and only then it is one shot per team. - The first player for Munich scored, while the first for Chelsea missed. If it weren't five shots per team at the beginning, the match would have been over by now, with Munich being the winner. Also, if Bayern had kept their cool, they would have taken advantage of such an obvious match point (as they would say in tennis). But the penalties went on (with some extra flavor being added by Munich's actual goal keeper also successfully scoring!), and after the fourth player for Munich missed and subsequently a Chelsea player put the ball into the goal, all of a sudden the match was fully open once again. Eventually, the last player for Munich also missed, while the previously mentioned Drogba scored the final penalty for Chelsea. - What left me so affected was that Bayern had as many as three match points, was the better team by far until the penalties, and still didn't manage to win. That's a match to remember!
Participating in and winning the 2012 Champions League, when coincidentally it was being held in Munich, had been the dream of
Uli Hoeneß, the man who has served the club for many decades as a player, then manager (the person who hires and fires the players), and most recently as the president (thus superseeding the CEO, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge). Hoeneß is the most outspoken person in the club and often makes statements that are perceived as arrogant. When he was the manager he also had a habit of buying the stars from newly emerging teams, so as to avoid their becoming a serious threat to Munich's hegemonial position. Turns out, while reaching the final of a Champions League season, it is not enough to put players from national newcomers on your roster; you need a team that meets international standards, and also a strategy of how you would like to play in the next five to ten years. Munich, on the other hand, has had as many as three different coaches with distinctively different concepts in the last five years. So I tend to think of the CL title in 2012 as Mr. Hoeneß' personal Cloud Cuckoo Land.
As it happens, there is another such thing in Bavaria, to which Munich is the capital. I believe I have stressed on the course German history on multiple occasions within this blog (the last time when I was telling about
my visit to Nördlingen). There was the style and title of German Emperor, which the respective holders saw in the tradition of the Roman Emperors. At the time Germany was a feudal society, with lesser nobles receiving land from the absolute authority of the emperor, and in turn having to pledge their allegiance. However, this system was destroyed when Napoléon Bonaparte invaded Germany, ultimately leading to the transfer of the Imperial style and title to Austria, until then an entity of the so-called "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". The German Empire was restored in 1871 after a few belligerent conflicts, yet Napoléon, a very clever man, had increased the "centrifugal forces" within the remainder of Germany by promoting many of the nobles to the next higher rank. He thereby created a number of kings, who played along Napoléon's plan and emphasized their new-found indepence from the old empire, rather than being loyal to it. So it came to pass that many former German subjects became kingdoms of their own, and among them Bavaria in particular. As a matter of fact, Bavarians tend to see themselves and their land as exceptional very similarly to the Americans ... and the rivalry between Prussia, the leader in the second German Empire, and Bavaria in 1871 can be in a way compared to the one between the Union and the Confederate States just a few years earlier. (Yet there was no civil war, and Bavaria had acknowledged Prussia's lead from the first minute.)
Now, after yet another excursion into German history I would like to explain how this taps into to the most recent trip of mine. While being a federal subject to the German Emperor, the King of Bavaria was nevertheless a man of significant influence, and after all of royal status. King Ludwig II., a supporter and fan of the fine arts, decided to have his grandor manifest in stone; and so he ordered the construction of several castles all across his realm. One was
Neuschwanstein, only a mile from
Hohenschwangau, another castle where he had spent much of his youth. Nowadays they have become a major tourist attraction, and when I got there I did encountered a multinational tourist crowd from the U.S., Japan, China, Spain, Italy, Russia, and other places. Since I am now living less than 100 miles from Neuschwanstein, I decided to visit the place, because it is quite famous, and I was feeling a little bad about not having been there. Previous attempts had failed due to a late start, since it is not only the drive, but also a relatively long walk up the mountain that precedes the actual visit. The walk up the mountain may include a visit to the Marienbrücke (bridge of Our Lady) near the castle, which provides a spectacular view of the castle. Therefore I seized the day when last Saturday I had my car inspected and the tyres changes from winter to summer profile, which was done well before noon. I drove all the way to the German-Austrian border where the castles are located (and almost accidentally crossed the border), parked my car at the foot of the mountains, purchased a ticket, and started walking up. I did go to the bridge (as my tour was scheduled only for several hours later), and then eventually I did the tour through the castle. The tour itself was only 30 min, reflecting the tragic life of Ludwig II., who was rather withdrawn from life and preferred to spend more money than he owned on his castle projects. Neuschwanstein was meant to be reminiscent of a knight's castle (built in various ecclectic styles of the middle ages), and the paintings on the wall allude to medieval (and nordic) mythology. The tragedy, however, consists in the early death of the king (in his early 40s), shortly after he had been declared mentally insane. Thus, Neuschwanstein never got finished, and thus represents Ludwig's very own Cloud Cuckoo Land (notwithstanding that the castle is built in the mountains, near the clouds; in Bavaria, where cuckoo clocks are commonplace ...) Beneath this obvious tragedy, there is the one of Ludwig's ambitions of being perceived as an absolute king like the French Bourbon dynasty (e.g., Louis XIV.), while at the same time the political system in Europe was mostly a more modern constitutional monarchy (i.e., there is a monarch, but he or she is limited by a constitution, which is the highest authority - e.g. the United Kingdom is following this example until the present day), and while the U.S. had re-introduced the principles of democracy a whole 100 years earlier. So all his castle-building efforts (among other things) can be viewed as Ludwig living in a bubble shaped by symbolism of the past.
Nevertheless, if seen as a piece of architecture in its own right, Neuschwanstein Castle does not fail to deliver the impression Ludwig had in mind. You are invited to enjoy my photographic evidence below.
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| Neuschwanstein Castle, seen from the parking area |
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| waterfall beneath the bridge |
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| breathtaking view of Neuschwanstein Castle from the bridge |
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| tower at the main gate of the castle; note the snow at the hilltop |
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| tuna salad and iced tea after a lot of sightseeing |
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| liquid hot chocolate pudding as the dessert |
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| on the way home: the castle and the mountains, seen from the bottom plains |
