Defeated mines. And not only among the fans of Italy, defeated by Spain (1-0) on June 20 in the AufSchalke Arena in Gelsenkirchen, in the group stage of the football Euro. The Spaniards may have won that night, but like their opponents, they were stuck near the stadium and unable to return to the party in the city centre.
There are not enough trams and buses to accommodate everyone, and the wait is endless.
This scene, described on the English page of the Deutsche Welle, is just one example in a series of failures of the organization of this European Championship in Germany.
Trains are almost systematically late, unsuitable infrastructure, chaos around the stadium… “For a week, the reputation of Germany, known for its supposedly legendary organization, suffered a blow,” estimates a canal across the Rhine.
Foreign media, such as The New York Times, they also did not hesitate to emphasize the dichotomy between the image of the earth arranged like a clock and the reality, much more chaotic.
The end of a myth
There Deutsche Welleshe moves on. “The beauty of the game on the field and the charged atmosphere save the furniture, she explains. Without it, problems with transportation and organization could damage the image of Euro 2024 even more seriously.”
In the Federal Republic, however, the fans’ problems did not surprise anyone. Germans have for years criticized the lack of investment in modernizing aging infrastructure and the failures of Deutsche Bahn, the country’s public railway company.
But few foreigners were aware of these difficulties. “Fans from other countries are often disappointed,” provided by the Bonn Canal.
Especially in Gelsenkirchen, which the media sees as the epicenter of the riots. “The myth of the German organization is being destroyed, and history will remember that it fell in Gelsenkirchen.”