The dramatic European Championship games prove that football is indestructible

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Celebrating Swiss after the triumph against France

Photo: Justin Setterfield / Getty Images

Anyone who has not yet understood the fascination of the soccer game received a lesson on Monday evening.

It's the European Championship, Spain played against Croatia in Copenhagen, you saw a goalkeeper who made a ridiculous mistake.

You saw Croatians who braced themselves against defeat for 120 minutes and lost dramatically in the end.

And then Switzerland against France.

Anyone who watched on TV how the French superstar Paul Pogba presented himself like a peacock after his spectacular goal to 3-1 and at the end - after the defeat on penalties - left the field like a beaten dog, suddenly understood: This suffering, this one Passion is what moves people.

One of the "coolest football nights ever", say even experts who have seen hundreds of games.

Football is a whore - it is ravishingly beautiful, beguiling, enticing.

But there is also the other side.

It's so sobering, so terribly business.

When Switzerland threw the reigning world champion out of the tournament, the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann spoke up at the same time: He criticized the increase in spectators for the Wembley Stadium in London and the pictures of full stadiums.

»Uefa and the DFB urgently need to ensure that the rules are adhered to.

The plan to let even more people into the stadiums, like at Wembley, is blatant, ”said Kretschmann in an interview.

This recklessness makes him stunned.

Health politician Janosch Dahmen, a doctor, also criticized those responsible for EM.

"We destroy everything that we have built up in the low number of cases." Football should "be a role model and not become a pandemic driver with deceptive carelessness".

The two Green politicians were of course right.

It is scientifically controversial whether there can be super spreaders in the stadium, after all, the games take place outdoors.

But it is now known that many football fans got infected at the European Championships.

And the thought that attending a football match can result in serious illness and death is unbearable.

It's just a game.

Uefa wants to use the EM to get the football business going again after the pandemic.

But does she really need the pictures full of stadiums?

The noise of the audience to show how attractive your product is?

The European Championship stirred up people.

The drama about the Danish player Christian Eriksen;

the paraglider who landed in the Munich stadium;

the dispute over the illumination of the Munich stadium in rainbow colors - all these topics moved the audience.

And now in the knockout games, it's the main characters, the players, who get people going.

The aesthetics, the high tension, the joy, the tears.

Football is indestructible.

The love for this sport would be even greater if it weren't for the profiteers.

Of course, it is naive to believe that they can all be thrown out, the greedy functionaries, the cold investors, the callous managers.

But there are moments when you can at least forget them.

Monday evening was such a moment.