Funny: “Without Angie, you wouldn’t be here,” bellowed the German fans--“We’ll never pay you back,” countered the Greeks. “We’ll never pay you back.”

Poland — The giant blue-and-white flag blotted out the overcast Baltic sky on Friday as the Greek fans pounded their drums and cheered at the foot of the centuries-old City Hall here. The Germans took up a chant in honor of their chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Funny: “Without Angie, you wouldn’t be here,” bellowed the German fans--“We’ll never pay you back,” countered the Greeks. “We’ll never pay you back.” 23euro337articlelarge

The leaders of Germany and Greece may be scrambling to hold Europe together, but on the popular level the strain of a three-year-old financial crisis is beginning to tear it apart. And while the European soccer championships have often served as a safe outlet for channeling nationalist passions into Europe’s favorite pastime, for thousands of Greeks and Germans — brought together by chance in the quarterfinals here — this encounter turned into something more than a game.

“They’ve provoked us with all of this terrible talk about Greece,” said Dimitrios Gorovelis, 33, part of a group from Aachen, in the far west of Germany, that had rented two silver vans and driven overnight to Poland. Some were originally from Greece and others were born in Germany, but they all were there to support the motherland.

For Greeks, Germany now represents austerity and foreign diktats. For Germans, the Greeks represent tax-dodging wastrels looking for handouts. “Goodbye Greeks,” declared the front page of the daily newspaper Bild on Friday; the paper has previously published calls for Greek islands and even the Acropolis to be sold. “Today we can’t rescue you,” the paper said.

“A lot of people, including myself, would have never thought even just a few short years ago that the relationship could deteriorate the way that it has,” said Janis A. Emmanouilidis, a senior analyst at the European Policy Center, who is half-Greek and half-German, citing the ties of migration and tourism, the regard Germany held for Greece as the cradle of democracy and Greece for Germany as a model of efficiency. “You have these reflexes, like defending oneself,” Mr. Emmanouilidis said.

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/world/europe/greece-vs-germany-spills-off-soccer-field.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Funny: “Without Angie, you wouldn’t be here,” bellowed the German fans--“We’ll never pay you back,” countered the Greeks. “We’ll never pay you back.”

Funny: “Without Angie, you wouldn’t be here,” bellowed the German fans--“We’ll never pay you back,” countered the Greeks. “We’ll never pay you back.”

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