And now for something completely different…

I’m having a slight moral crisis. Portugal and Germany are playing each other in the quarterfinals of Euro 2008. While normally, despite my indifference to Portugal generally and my dislike of C. Ronaldo specifically, my policy of always rooting against the Germans would hold. The only time this was seriously challenged was a game against Saudi Arabia, in the 2002 (I think, might have been 2006, but I can’t remember off-hand) World Cup. There’s a complication this time, though. The last game of the group stage was the Anschluss bowl between Austria and Germany. While the Germans needed a win to advance, the Austrians were already out. The coaches got into an altercation, and both were given red cards, which means a one game suspension. This is relatively meaningless for the Austrian coach (in the words of the British football press, “Austria are crap,” and even if he has to serve the suspension in a competitive game, rather than a friendly, it will be the first game in a long World Cup Qualifying campaign, for which Austria are long-shots anyway). The German coach will miss the quarterfinals. Now if Germany lose, we’ll have to hear monstrous amounts of self-pity and self-righteousness out of the Germans, and typically, these emotions and Germany lead to bad outcomes. Either way, injuries and red cards are my preferred outcome.