Monday, 4 p.m., Japan-Croatia
Those were good times, when »social envy« was still »class hatred«. A word as ugly as it is apt. The envious wants what the envied has, the hater wants it out of the world. But unlike, say, racial hatred, class hatred is not directed at inalienable human characteristics, but at actions within a social framework. Those that can be discarded. Especially to those who have always had an inherent element of war. What is an employment contract but a declaration of war?
Unfortunately, hate itself is an attitude I am incapable of. I tried, honestly. Therapy, alcohol, joining parties – nothing helped. void somehow. I felt inadequate and started hating myself for my inability.
Then today the breakthrough. The circumstances were favourable. You stand in a long line at the supermarket. (I hate queues.) In front of you is a person with a truck full to the brim. And of course it’s always the ones with the full wagons who are particularly slow to pack. And, of course, the person can’t just throw their stuff in the cart and then pack their thirteen and a half bags off to the side. And of course she makes a mistake, unpacks two of the thirteen and a half bags again. And of course she needs a safe two minutes to get the exact amount out of her wallet, down to the last cent. And of course she collects loyalty points (and if she were playing soccer in a more popular country, certainly World Cup stickers too). And of course – you are in the Kiez here – you still have to have a private conversation with the saleswoman. And of course not while packing, that would be two things at once. And of course you stand there with nothing but a cup of low-fat quark. And of course you were too polite to ask beforehand if she would let you in. But the person could actually have figured out for themselves that my time is much more valuable than theirs. Although, when I look at her like this: no, she wouldn’t have. I would very much like to be in Sweden right now.
In short, I don’t know what class hatred is, but box office hate, I do know it.
Felix Bartels
Japan – Croatian 11:0
*
“I got up and left the kitchen” (had he, the twenty-seven and soon to be twenty-nine-year-old narrator, stopped in the kitchen at all and not just on the threshold of the door that led to the kitchen?), he wanted to get out of his room get a sweater (since he was freezing).
He bowed “slightly” to his guests and smiled, expressing his sympathy for his disappearance.
There was no sound in the apartment. He “walked noiselessly,” evenly, he thought about how many times he had walked this path exactly the same way.
In the hallway he saw “fine bands of gray light.” He entered his room, stood in front of the window, kneaded his arms and ran a finger over the fogged glass.
“There are two ways, at home, behind a window pane, of observing the rain falling.” (Hanns Eisler! With that, however: fourteen ways.) With the first, the viewer adopts a Cartesian point of view (the gaze falls isolating and fixating on a point in the world from which one thinks one can survey the whole in its entirety, which stands for the whole), in the second the eye follows “the falling of a single drop” (nominalism?). The reasoning in this case: “In this way it is possible to imagine that the movement, however lightning-like it may seem, tends in its essence to be motionless (Husserl! Eidetic Reduction!), and it for this reason, as slow as it may seem at times, the body is constantly being pulled towards death (Heidegger!), in which I see immobility. Olé.«
It was now pouring rain. The cars (motorists) slowed down. Everything there (out there) seemed to have “arrived at a standstill.”
He “went to the closet,” opened it, and rummaged through the compartments. “Wasn’t there a sweater anywhere?”
He gave up his search, crept out, pushed aside “paint pots” (why are they here now?) in the hallway with his foot, opened the door to the closet and looked inside.
Pullover?
Jürgen Roth
Japan – Croatia 4:3 (very good tip from brother Thomas)
*
Monday, 8 p.m., Brazil v South Korea
This World Cup tournament is like a first-class escort lady: thoroughly depraved but pretty to look at. And sometimes highly dramatic, like the last day of the crazy Group H, where Uruguay defeated Ghana 2-0 and was kicked out anyway. With the help of referee Daniel Siebert, who denied the desperately running Urus a penalty kick and thus the redeeming 3:0. Luis Suárez cried his shirt and left the big football stage without taking another bite. At the same time, my Friday morning pint went into overtime, Neunspringe Weißbier lost to Budweiser 4:6 after a penalty.
My fondest memory of the 2006 World Cup at home: Like elsewhere, I felt like Germany flags were stuck to all the cars in Weimar. Some of which disappeared overnight. Who steals something like that? After the DFB defeat in the semifinals we knew it. The young Antifa wrapped a clothesline around the squat at Gerberstraße 1 and hung at least 100 of these flags on it. However, the kids had cut off the yellow border. This is how you convert patriot guns into anarcho-communist black and red, recommended for imitation at the home EM 2024.
Preview: As group runners-up, the South Koreans have to play against long-term favorites Brazil, who dominated Group G at least until overtime on the last matchday and were able to afford Cameroon’s winning goal. Also in stoppage time, South Korea’s Hwang made it 3-2 against Portugal, earning him and his tireless teammates a place in the last 16 and retiring Suárez. Unlike the latter, the South Koreans don’t nibble on other people’s ears either, but rather bulletproof chocolate. For them, however, the journey comes to an end today, my football advisor Alex predicts a hard-fought, narrow victory for the Brazilians. If they get two or three hits in time before Hwang’s tank chocolate kicks.
Pierre Deason-Tomory
Brazil 2-1 South Korea
*
From now on it’s time to enjoy. Germany is out – consistent boycott of the round of 16 since 2018. The knockout round has begun. One overtime chases the next, after the super long stoppage time in overtime then the penalty shootout. That’s how it can be endured in the German winter when it’s cold and wet and slippery outside. Going outside the door would also be dangerous, with the risk of slipping and consequently breaking a bone. The already overburdened hospitals should not be overburdened any further. So: watch the telly (with a guilty conscience because of the Blood World Cup), cans of beer hiss, your body, which is no longer so fit, slides deeper and deeper into the upholstery until it becomes one with the dirty couch.
Especially on Mondays. The weekend is over again, after just two days. I haven’t really rested. Instead: pointless pub talks, hot mulled wine with trembling knees and Christmas tunes, in between sleepless nights full of existential fears. Football comes at just the right time. Brains out, telly on, some will say in a reproachful tone. I’m blessed.
But the kicking in the container stadium, Stadium 974 in Doha, is just as tired as I am. At least the Brazilians learned something from their last group game against Cameroon: they score goals instead of conceding them. Of course, the resurrection of Neymar helps. However, South Korea is by no means making it easy for the Seleção. In any case, it is surprising that the Kims from the capitalist south of the Korean peninsula are usually underestimated. They have appeared at every World Cup since 1986, and it is by no means the first time that the side with the best record from Asia have progressed through the preliminary round. But in the end none of this helps.
I turn off the screen and scratch my butt. Time wise I would get enough sleep if I went to bed now. Instead of football, however, the world of thoughts is waiting there. No good prospects.
Frederic Schnatterer
Brazil 2-0 South Korea
