In Herzogenaurach, where football families are divorcing

Published on June 15, 2024 at 6:46 p.m. / Modified on June 15, 2024 at 9:45 p.m.

This is Bavaria as we imagine it: green, peaceful and prosperous. Geese, cyclists and businesses share the edges of the rolling fields around Herzogenaurach, a town of 23,000 north of Nuremberg that is home to a few ghosts and three major global sports brands: Adidas, Puma and the national team of Germany football. Away from the old town with its old Bavarian stone walls and half-timbered houses, they are scattered along a road dotted with roundabouts or streets to the glory of one or the other. other.

Dressed all in red, Puma’s headquarters, Rudolf-Dassler Straße (named after its founder), are impressive. Those of Adidas, a kilometer further, much further, have the appearance of a real campus. It is there, out of sight, that the German team is preparing for Euro 2024. In front of the entrance, a statue of Adolf “Adi” Dassler (Adi Dass…), Rudolf’s brother, reminds us the historical link that unites the Nationalmannschaft to “the three-striped mark”. Dassler wears a Deutscher Fussbal-Bund tracksuit, with the DFB acronym with three intertwined triangles, and holds in his hand a shoe with screwed studs, the brilliant invention which allowed the German players to dominate the invincible Hungary in the final of the 1954 World Cup on the muddy Wankdorf pitch. Adidas contributed to the “Miracle of Berne”, therefore to projecting the country into the post-war period, and therefore to the reconstruction of a national identity.

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