Germany played Argentina in the World Cup quarterfinal on 30 June 2006, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The match went to penalties. Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann had a sheet of hotel notepaper with the names of the Argentine penalty takers, written in pencil. Goalkeeping coach Andreas Köpke had drawn the information from a database of 13,000 penalties kept by the Dutch coach Huub Stevens. Köpke said: Wir haben nichts dem Zufall überlassen. “We left nothing to chance.” Utz Claassen bought the note for one million euros, and it is now shown at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn. Lehmann later admitted that the note was quite hard to read.
sports
Coming Forward Too Late
German tax law gives immunity from punishment to a tax evader who corrects his tax returns in a Selbstanzeige, a self-disclosure. The immunity does not apply if the offense had already been discovered, in whole or in part, at that time, and the offender knew this or should have expected it (§ 371 AO). On 15 January 2013, his bank called Uli Hoeneß, the president of Bayern Munich, after a reporter from the magazine Stern had been asking questions at the bank. Early on 17 January 2013 he filed a self-disclosure. The tax office found that it was not a vollständige und einwandfreie Selbstanzeige, a complete and correct self-disclosure, and the court ruled it invalid. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for evading 28.5 million euros in tax. Hoeneß had said he filed on 12 January. That date later turned out to be untrue.
A Resignation on Facebook
On 27 November 2019, Jürgen Klinsmann was presented as the head coach of Hertha BSC. In January 2020 alone, the club invested a record 77 million euros. On 11 February 2020, Klinsmann announced on Facebook that he was resigning as head coach with immediate effect. The investor Lars Windhorst called the way he left unakzeptabel, unacceptable.
A Goalkeeper’s Mistake
Oliver Kahn was named the best player of the 2002 World Cup. He was the first goalkeeper ever to receive the Golden Ball. In the final against Brazil, he pushed a shot from Rivaldo straight to the feet of Ronaldo, who scored the first goal. Kahn later told the magazine kicker: Ich muss mit meinem Fehler leben. I have to live with my mistake.
Eleven Friends
Elf Freunde müsst ihr sein, wenn ihr Siege wollt erringen. You must be eleven friends if you want to win. The line was engraved on the base of the Victoria, the trophy of the German football championship. The trophy was awarded from 1903 to 1944.
The huddle
American football stops play so that eleven people can be told the next move, and the sport built the pause into its own structure to allow it. The word crossed into American business intact — a huddle is a short unscheduled meeting whose only purpose is to get everyone holding the same picture.
Dropped the ball
The most common American phrase for a task that failed because nobody passed it on. The ball was in motion, in a sequence, between people. The failure is located in the handoff rather than in the work.
Blindsided
The American word for being harmed by information you were not given, borrowed from football, where the hit comes from the side the player cannot see. The word places no fault on the person hit. All of it falls on whoever saw what was coming and said nothing.
The shot clock
Basketball teams that were ahead used to stall, holding the ball and refusing to shoot. The NBA’s answer was a clock forcing a shot attempt within twenty-four seconds. The sport changed its own rules because not acting was ruining it to watch.
The two-minute drill
American football has a distinct mode for the closing minutes: no huddle, plays called at the line, clock managed to the second. Teams practise it as a separate discipline — a whole rehearsed system for what to do when there is no time to deliberate.