History Archives ⋆ An Old International

Berne, July 4, 1954 – Notes on a perceived Miracle

‘Rahn should shoot from the background. Rahn shoots! Goal! Goal! Goal!’ These words spoken by radio commentator Herbert Zimmermann in the heat of the moment when Helmut Rahn had scored Germany’s third goal during the World Cup final 1954 in Berne are familiar to many Germans and have become cultural icons like Kenneth Wolstenholme’s words…

Ideas on Player Ratings

Experience as a teacher includes marking students work and essays. However, not all these works deserve the same weight in the final bulletin. Here are some ideas how to weigh players performances differently. As a teacher it is my task to teach and educate children of different ages in different subject matters: sport and social…

Franz Beckenbauer 1945 – 2024

The story of German could have come quite differently, had not one incident decided the fate of the two Munich clubs, 1860 and Bayern, respectively. As a youngster, Franz Beckenbauer played for a small Munich club in his neighbourhood, Giesing. It was his intention to move to TSV 1860 Munich at some point in his…

Super Jews – Exhibition Review

The Jewish Museum in Vienna presents an exhibition on Jewish Identity in the football stadium, which looks at several different clubs from four European countries: Austria (Hakoah, First Vienna and Austria), Germany (Bayern Munich), England (Tottenham) and the Netherlands (Ajax). The question this little exhibition follows is “What makes a football club, a Jewish club?”…

Intel Inside! Magdeburg and Intel

The news that the American chip producer Intel would open a production site near Magdeburg was one of the best news that happened in 2022. The volume of the investment is estimated to be around 30bn Euro. That is massive and a sincere boost for the region which has seen a lot of unemployment following…

Eternal Bauer – Bauer Eternel

These days tickets to see Red Star at the time-honoured Stade Bauer are hard to come by. The team sit comfortably on top of the league with a five-point cushion over second-placed Niort Chamois. The game vs Nîmes was a sending-off for one the oldest stands in European football still in use: it dates back…

Crisis? Crisis! Magdeburg in freefall

More than a third of the season have been played and Magdeburg look not convincing. The moment this began came during the match against Schalke 04 in September. The team of Christian Titz were cruising to victory and were already 2-0 up after 30 minutes when Schalke suddenly scored. It swung the momentum the other…

it’s only a tap-in

The finish by Marcus Dinanga looks easy but the movement involved more than 30 passes – 37 to be precise – and saw 10 players touching the ball at least once. Observers of football of a certain age will remember a previous instance. During the group stages of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Argentina…

Red Star’s new shirt a reference to club’s history

The Parisian club Red Star have chosen to create their new shirt for the 2023/24 season with the help of artificial intelligence. OFFICIEL ! Le Red Star dévoile ses nouveaux maillots 2023/24.Pour dessiner ces maillots, Kappa et le Red Star ̀… ' , à partir d'images d'archives du club.Qu'on aime ou qu'on n'aime… pic.twitter.com/6TBU7mNGCA— Actu…

Not my game (anymore)

Barely a week is passing during this summer transfer window without news of some daring transfer proposal from a Saudi Arabian football club. It appears that ever since Cristiano Ronaldo has signed for Al-Nassr FC, his colleagues have followed suit. The latest arrivals are Karim Benzema, Sadio Mané, N’Golo Kanté, Jordan Henderson and Steven Gerrard.…