Från en artikel i "The week in Germany" av Karen Carstens
Playing soccer - or football, as the rest of the world beyond North America calls it - is a major passtime in Africa, South America, Europe, North America, Australia and, increasingly, pretty much everywhere else regardless of race, religion or class.
Mesut Özil, a Germany national squad player in the 2010 World Cup who is now featured on televised ads with other global soccer stars airing in the US, was gearing up for one of the biggest games of his career.
Young soccer fans celebrate together in June 2008 at a Turkey versus Germany match during the European championships.
Özil, who turns 22 next week, grew up in the western German city of Gelsenkirchen. As a German of Turkish origin who now plays for Real Madrid, he has been courted by both the German and Turkish national teams. Yet, as reported by dpa, "he eventually chose the jersey with the eagle rather than the moon and crescent".
The reason is simple: he feels German because he is German. "It is not a decision against my Turkish roots. My family is living here now in the third generation and it's here where I grew up," he is quoted as saying by dpa.
Unity in diversity is alive and kicking on soccer fields in Germany - and all over the planet. In sports no one really cares where you come from as long as you're eager to play the game. It's really all about where you're going - a highly individualistic notion that is perhaps nowhere on earth more touted as the ideal than in the United States.
When they're at the top of their game like Özil as players and as people, athletes exemplify all the best things that humanity strives to be. The German national soccer team presents a great ideal of what society could be like if we all worked together as a team of talented individuals.
