The detailed rules and regulations and a sign-up form will be posted shortly.
Make a video that is not longer than 3 minutes. You can
work alone or with your friends. If your video is a team effort up to
four team members will be awarded prizes – which means: four students
will get to go to Munich should their team win the Grand Prize.
Do this before the submission deadline of 11:59 EST, April 13, 2015.
We will upload the top 20 videos to the Step into German website.
The Step into German jury consisting of jurors from the
Goethe-Institut San Francisco will pick these 20 videos. The jury’s
decision will be based on the video’s originality, creativity and
interpretation of the theme.
And now the fun starts! Get voted on by your classmates. Let your
Facebook friends know about the contest. Tweet about your video. There
are many ways to get people to vote for you. (Details about the voting
process to follow.)
The five top vote getters will make it to the final round.
Representatives of FC Bayern Munich will determine the Grand Prize
winner.
World Cup 2014: Germany Needs Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer to Play Well
Photo
Thomas Müller, 24, was
playing for a third division German team as late as 2009 and now has
nine World Cup goals in two tournaments.Credit
Patrik Stollarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
RIO
DE JANEIRO — It has been a hot and cold World Cup for Germany: from its
bold statement match in steamy Salvador against Portugal to its botched
lines and opportunities in the chill and drizzle of Porto Alegre
against Algeria.
Despite
fluctuating form and Manager Joachim Löw’s concern about seven players
with mild flu symptoms, the Germans are, as usual, in contention with
the World Cup reaching its business end.
Germany
is hard to read and difficult to categorize, and its protean nature is
particularly evident at the front of the attack and the back of the
defense. Thomas
Müller, again its leading scorer, is an unconventional, unusually
versatile forward. Manuel Neuer is an unconventional, unusually
versatile goalkeeper.
The
two players cover enormous ground inside and outside the penalty areas.
Even on a rough night in the Round of 16 victory over Algeria, their
confidence and resourcefulness under pressure were pivotal.
Müller
kept missing shots or connections, even stumbling on a free kick —
either a big gaffe or an ineffective ruse — late in the second half. But
he never stopped hustling and eventually picked the lock, sliding a
pass through traffic to André Schürrle in the opening minutes of extra
time that Schürrle spun into gold with a back-heel flick.
By
then Neuer, roaming free and taking big risks, had already snuffed
several promising Algerian attacks far from the usual zones where
goalkeepers operate.
“He is certainly the most complete keeper in the world,” Hugo Lloris, his French counterpart, said on Thursday.
Müller
and Neuer at their best will most likely be needed if Germany is to end
what is now a serious drought, with no World Cup title since 1990 and
no major trophy since the European Championship in 1996.
Müller
and Neuer are not short on trophies. As two of the many national team
members who play their club soccer for Bayern Munich, they won the
German Cup, the Bundesliga and, above all, the Champions League in 2013.
At
age 24, Müller is no longer the Wunderkind who, in barely a year, went
from playing in Germany’s third division to becoming the leading scorer
of the 2010 World Cup.
Louis
van Gaal, the former Bayern coach and a fine talent spotter who is
managing the Netherlands, was the man who gave Müller his big break at
the club after Jurgen Klinsmann had tested him briefly without recalling
him during his days running Bayern.
Müller,
raised in Bavaria and married at 20, is happy to have recently signed a
contract extension with Bayern through 2019. He was an attacking
midfielder in 2010, usually operating on the right and sniffing out
opportunity after opportunity. He scored five goals and has four more in
Brazil. In light of his age and craftsmanship, it is no stretch to
imagine him finishing his career with more goals than any man in World
Cup history. With nine for now, he is still well behind his German
teammate Miroslav Klose and Ronaldo, who are tied at the top with 15.
Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer has covered plenty of ground.Credit
Patrik Stollarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Müller’s
a player who’s honest and genuine and keeps getting in there and keeps
arriving on the scene,” said Chris Waddle, the former English star
working here as a BBC analyst. “He gets his chances because of his
honesty and endeavor. If you make 20 runs, you might get one chance, and
he’ll make every one of those 20 runs.”
He
is being used as a striker this time, but he is no pure No. 9. He has
played all over the attacking map during his club and national team
career and is doing more of the same in Brazil, sometimes retreating
deep into the midfield to try to create a new threat. And it is hardly
all about his own goal count.
“He
is a very generous player who makes a lot of defensive efforts,” said
Didier Deschamps, France’s manager. “He’s an engine for their team.”
With
his long stride and endurance, he likes his open space, and one of his
gifts is finding it at just the right time. He might not be a playmaker
like his teammate Mesut Ozil, but he undeniably has vision.
“He’s
the only player in the world who manages to see, at the same time, the
space around him, the ball, his teammates and his opponents,” van Gaal
once said of Müller.
And
Müller’s view of himself? “I know I don’t have the most elegant style;
I’m not a magician,” he told the magazine France Football last month.
“But I’m unpredictable, and I know what needs to be done: Go where it
hurts, never give up, and play with lots of spontaneity.”
Lots
of cool precision as well. Consider his goal against the United States,
beautifully struck off a rebound past the diving Tim Howard, a
goalkeeper who has since proven to an even larger audience just how hard
he is to beat.
Howard
is an aggressive, acrobatic keeper. But he is old-school compared with
Neuer, whose play far off his line here has been the ultimate expression
of the 21st-century goalkeeper’s expanded role in the flow of play.
The
catalyst was a rule change in 1992 that prohibited goalkeepers from
handling the ball when a teammate intentionally kicked it to them.
Intended to open up the game, that new rule gradually put more emphasis
on foot skills for goalkeepers and ultimately helped produce a man like
Neuer, who has been called a sweeper-keeper.
Already
inclined to venture outside traditional boundaries for Bayern, he took
his style to new extremes against Algeria, when he touched the ball 19
times outside the penalty area, and not only with his foot. In the
second half, with the Algerian striker Islam Slimani bearing down on a
long, high-bouncing through ball, Neuer sprinted outside the area and
snuffed the danger with a leaping header. On other occasions, he played
with the ball at his feet, visibly enjoying the joust at one stage in
the first half as he fooled an Algerian forward and only then delivered
the pass upfield.
“Manuel
has the same technical skills as the others; he could play in
midfield,” Löw said Thursday. “He has a good sense of orientation and a
good sense of distances, and that’s what makes him so valuable. And
that’s why he is welcome to take this risk.”
Others
in Germany get more nervous, including Franz Beckenbauer, a former
German star and manager who played plenty of sweeper but not as a
goalkeeper. “Yes,
Manuel Neuer saved us in some situations, as an outfield player would
do, but he threw caution to the wind,” Beckenbauer said at a news
conference this week. Beckenbauer added, “I would prefer that he remains in goal against France.”
That
might be wise, particularly when it is difficult to imagine Löw asking
his defenders to play quite as high a line against France as they did
against Algeria. That should leave less open space that Neuer will feel
obligated to patrol.
France’s
Lloris is also an aggressive keeper with a lesser case of Wanderlust,
so there should be plenty of new-age goaltending on display.
Plenty of new age Müller, too. Germany, in this time of trouble, is counting on it.
NYTimes BONUS:
Graphic: All of Tim Howard’s 16 Saves Against Belgium
European Champions Bayern Munich won the UEFA Super Cup in the most dramatic style in the Eden Arena in Prague on Friday night. Their last-minute equalizer opened the way to success in the penalty shoot-out.
This game - which ended 2-2 after extra-time before Romelu Lukaku missed the decisive penalty for Chelsea - was always more than just a contest for a decorative start-of-the-season bauble pitting the winners of the Champions League against the winners of the Europa League. Not only was it a revenge match for Bayern, after their painful (and slightly bizarre) defeat to the Londoners in the 2012 Champions League final, it was billed as an early clash between arguably the two hottest coaches in Europe. Chelsea's Jose Mourinho had moved to his former club after a fraught final year with Real Madrid, while Guardiola returned from his post-Barcelona sabbatical to take over the treble-winning Germans in the summer.
Bayern could not convert their first-half dominance Fernando Torres opened the scoring for the London side in the 8th minute, finishing a sweeping counter-attack - Eden Hazard stormed through the center of Bayern's midfield, and found André Schürrle free on the right of the penalty area.
Chelsea's new German-signing knocked it back to the Spanish international - who had also scored in the Europa League final - inside the area, and Torres promptly struck a sweet first-time half-volley into goalie, Manuel Neuer's, near corner.
Those opening minutes set the tone for the whole half, as the Munich team dominated while Chelsea constantly threatened to break at pace. Just after the half-hour mark, Schürrle and Torres nearly combined again to double the lead, only for the Spaniard to fire over.
At the other end, Ribery continued to provide the most potent threat, at one point forcing Cech into a brilliant low save in his bottom left corner.
Hectic second half But Bayern, often guilty of playing too indirectly in the first half, wasted no time in the second. It was Ribery - his confidence clearly brimming - who opened the Bavarians' account just two minutes after the restart. Taking possession just outside the area on the left, as he had done so often in the first half, the dangerous Frenchman opted for the near corner this time - and beat the unsighted goalkeeper with a fierce shot.
There followed another period of Bayern dominance, which they were unable to capitalize on once again. It was Chelsea who had the better chances - after a mix-up in Bayern's defense, Oscar was denied by Neuer when he only had the big German to beat, then David Luiz missed a glorious headed chance from a Frank Lampard free-kick.
Chelsea took the lead in extra time, despite being a man down Bayern were handed an advantage in the 85th minute as Chelsea's Ramires was sent off for a second yellow card, leaving the Munich side with a man advantage for extra time. Not that the Londoners let it bother them. Just three minutes into extra time, Hazard produced a moment of individual brilliance to make it 2-1. The Frenchman ran onto a pass from the center-circle own the left, cut into the penalty area (leaving Philipp Lahm and Jerome Boateng for dead on the way), and smashed into the same spot that Ribery had found at the start of the second half.
Bayern made their advantage tell for the rest of extra-time, but struggled against a solid Chelsea defense and a superlative Cech in goal. At least that was the case until the last four seconds of injury time, when a David Alaba cross bounced off Dante in the box and dropped into the path of substitute Javi Martinez, who slotted the ball home from close range.
The penalty shoot-out was flawless from both sides until Lukaku was left with the short straw. Manuel Neuer stopped the Belgian striker's shot. It was the first time in five penalties that the Munich keeper had dived the right way.
If the form guide holds true, then Bayern Munich will
be crowned as European champion Saturday, a title that would inevitably
see the giant German club unanimously recognized as the current best in
the world.
Yet while victory over Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium would cap
a spectacular season, nothing it achieves in the Champions League final
can overshadow Bayern’s greatest and most important triumph, one that
took place more than seven decades ago.
Bayern Munich players celebrate after defeating Barcelona in the Champions League semifinal. (Getty Images)That
triumph was survival itself, attained against all odds and in the face
of the most terrifying of opponents – Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.
During the years leading up to the second World War, Bayern had
developed a strong tradition of having senior administrators, sponsors,
fans and coaches … who were Jewish. That status put the club and its
leaders directly in the crosshairs of the Nazis, who were determined to
stamp out any sign of Jewish success or positivity.
As the tentacles of Hitler’s racist and anti-Semitic doctrine spread
and the seeds of hatred that would ultimately result in the Holocaust
grew, Bayern, having won its first German title in 1932, became a
readily available and high-profile target.
“There was no desire from those in power to see what was known as
the Judenklub [Jewish club] be successful,” said historian Dietrich
Schulze-Marmeling, author of the 2011 award-winning book "FC Bayern and
Its Jews." “The club was isolated amid all this anti-Semitism that was
taking over the country.”
The Nazis certainly tried their best to erase Bayern from its
position of prominence within the game and from German soccer history.
The party ordered Bayern to be demoted to a lower division despite its
success, and Jewish members and supporters were forced to leave the
club.
Club chief Kurt Landauer, the energetic Jewish businessman whose
vision had been crucial to its growth, continued to run operations
behind the scenes despite being stripped of his official duties before
being arrested in 1938 and taken to the fearsome concentration camp at
Dachau. More than 30,000 prisoners died at Dachau, either by execution
or by being worked to death, but Landauer managed to escape and flee to
neutral Switzerland, where he would see out the war before later
returning to his post as club president.
Banners proclaiming him as the “father” of Bayern are often seen at
the club’s matches and may again be on display at Wembley on Saturday as
Bayern seeks its first European crown since 2001.
Club members Albert Beer and Berthold Koppel were not as fortunate as
Landauer. They were deported and killed, according to
Schulze-Marmeling’s book.
Bayern continued to operate and continued to defy the Nazis. In 1934,
several of the team’s players were involved in a fight with Nazi
“Brownshirt” enforcers following a dispute.
A Bayern player, Willy Simetsreiter, deliberately antagonized the
Nazis by asking to have his photograph taken with Jesse Owens at the
1936 Olympics, according to the Guardian.
When the war was fully underway in 1939, a Nazi decree ordered that
all spare metal be handed over and used as a resource – including any
sporting trophies. Several teams obliged, but Bayern refused. Magdalena
Heidkamp, wife of club captain Konrad, took the trophies and buried them
at a nearby farm.
As a further insult to the Nazis, Bayern players symbolically waved
to Landauer as they lined up for an exhibition game in Switzerland in
1943.Yet even after the Allies moved in to Germany and the Nazi regime
crumbled, the brave resistance of Bayern and its members went
unrecognized, seemingly destined to be lost in time.
The German people wanted to try to forget their horrific memories,
and even until recent times it was thought best not to embrace this
period of history.
Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is helping to usher in a new era and enlightened approach for the club. …A
shift in policy has emerged over the last few years, thanks to the more
enlightened approach of Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, a former
two-time European footballer of the year and a Bayern star of the 1970s
and '80s.
“We should be proud of our history, and all its aspects,” Rummenigge said recently.
Having grown slowly and steadily as Germany rebuilt after the war,
Bayern is now a global soccer power, the biggest force in the German
Bundesliga, which may currently be the strongest league in the world.
While it was once thought by Bayern chiefs that focusing on the
struggles of yesteryear was not conducive to a vibrant modern image,
Rummenigge bucked the trend and there is now a section in the club
museum dedicated to its Jewish history.
Bayern is an overwhelming favorite on Saturday, primarily thanks to
its ferocious 7-0 destruction of Barcelona in the semifinal. It ran away
with the German title this season by a massive 25 points and has the
painful memories of losing last year’s final to Chelsea – in its own
stadium, no less – to spur it on.
Yet Dortmund, relishing the role of underdog, has been swift to point
out that nothing can be taken for granted in soccer. For Bayern, with
its tortured but ultimately triumphant past, there should be no need for
such a reminder.
Das hat es noch nie gegeben — zwei deutsche Mannschaften stehen im Finale der Champions League,
dem wichtigsten und renommiertesten europäischen Wettbewerb für Clubteams.
Juventus Turin gegen AC Mailand, Real Madrid gegen Valencia und Manchester United gegen FC Chelsea — die Topteams aus den Fußballnationen Italien, Spanien und England waren im Champions League Finale schon einmal unter sich. Jetzt kommt es zum Match zwischen den deutschen Giganten Bayern München und Borussia Dortmund.
Am 25. Mai ist es so weit. Bayern München, Gewinner von 4 Champions League Titeln, trifft im Londoner
Wembley Stadion auf Borussia Dortmund, die den Titel bisher einmal gewonnen hat. Beide Mannschaften
haben dieses Jahr in der Champions League berühmte Teams aus dem Weg geräumt. Gegen Bayern
München hatte selbst das Starensemble des FC Barcelona keine Chance. Und Borussia Dortmund schlug
Mannschaften wie Real Madrid, Manchester City und Ajax Amsterdam.
Der Favorit im Endspiel ist der FC Bayern München mit den deutschen Nationalspielern Bastian
Schweinsteiger, Thomas Müller, Philipp Lahm und Manuel Neuer und internationalen Stars wie dem
Franzosen Franck Ribéry und dem Holländer Arjen Robben.
Der Favorit der Herzen ist allerdings die Borussia aus dem westfälischen Dortmund. Ihr sympathischer Coach Jürgen Klopp wird seine junge Mannschaft bestens vorbereiten — und der Außenseiter hofft, dass der polnische Top-Stürmer Robert Lewandowski auch im Endspiel treffen wird.
