Germans donned the sackcloth and just a handful of fans turned out at Frankfurt airport yesterday to welcome the German soccer team turned national disgrace.
"We're Out! We're the Laughing Stock of Europe" screamed Germany's Bild tabloid at its six million readers this morning. "We haven't won a European Championship game in eight years. A disgrace! Shame on you, you losers!" The paper filled page after page with venom, pouring scorn on the team that lost against a side of "Czech nobodies".
The coverage gave more than ample proof that, in Germany, football is much more than a game.
"For Germany, football is the only valve we have to let out our national pride," said a glum Marc Hennemann in a Berlin bar yesterday.
It came as little surprise when national coach Rudi Völler announced his immediate resignation. "The Euro loss is a big burden for me. I know it is not about me alone. But I don't feel that I have enough credibility to try something out and lose matches," he said. "We were playing the Czech B team, it just wasn't enough."
Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, the head of German Football Association (DFB), said he regretted but respected the decision.
"I have to thank Rudi for spontaneously taking the job . . . Rudi helped the DFB in a very difficult situation after the Euro 2000 elimination," he said.
Football championships have a startling effect on the German national character. While 10 per cent unemployment and painful austerity measures have poisoned the national mood, football makes everything better if only for a few hours. Over 25 million people - a third of the population - watched yesterday's match, making it an unusually public humiliation for Germans and a devastating blow to their already delicate national pride.
The news was too much for some: in Hamburg around 150 furious fans went on a rampage, injuring a television cameraman. Police made 23 arrests.
Lampposts and windows were noticeably bare around Berlin this morning. Flags and bunting could be seen all over the city in the last week, a common sight in Dublin but highly unusual here. German national pride is only dusted off every two years for big football matches and the last time the flags appeared were during the World Cup final two years ago when Germany lost to Brazil.
The gravity of the situation was clear when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder appeared before journalists at a hastily-arranged press conference to make a statement on the match. "It's now paramount to create a national team capable of competing at the highest level," said an ashen-faced Schröder. "We need to prepare ourselves for 2006." Schröder knows that if the national side performs as badly in the World Cup in Germany as they did in Portugal, he could face a rout in the 2006 general election.
Former Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld emerged yesterday as the clear favourite as new Germany coach. "After the resignation of Rudi Völler, it would be logical step for me to become national team coach," said Hitzfeld.
Germany's soccer "Kaiser", Franz Beckenbauer, called Hitzfeld the best coach in German soccer and the best choice for the job. "And he's available," he said of the sacked Bayern Munich coach.
Germany's leading sports magazine, Kicker, said the defeat was no surprise and was an poor omen of things to come. "Germany's national team has been in stagnation for the past decade," it said, saying that only fresh blood will invigorate the team before the 2006 World Cup.
