Ascona Diary: The Lago Embargo

The German national team had promised to go into hiding in their base-camp and they kept their word. As mentioned in the other post, they built a large fence around their hotel at the Lago Maggiore, and it’s doing its job so far. Only little snippets of news are bubbling to the surface, and for some of them we have to rely on the DFB website to mercifully publish them. Like the short note, that the Mannschaft had played a U18 side from Tessin and beat them 8-0. The DFB’s own DFB.TV even offers amateurishly assembled match highlights. Klose and Gomez both scored twice, while Neuville, Kuranyi, Podolski and Hitzelsperger bagged one goal each.

In other good news, no one is injured or at least we presume that this is the case, until the DFB website announces otherwise. And to conclude this post, there actually was a bit of team internal gossip that made it to the press…

Philipp Lahm splashed onto the international football scene with his opening goal of the World Cup in 2006. Some say he’s been resting on his laurels since. But there really isn’t anyone, who can currently seriously compete for his place in Germany’s starting eleven; where he’ll almost certainly start on the right flank. Philipp Lahm also ruled the ping pong table in the team hotel two years ago. And he admitted, that he’s been resting on his laurels here as well. And while Arne Friedrich couldn’t beat Lahm to his place on the right side, he’s now established himself as the new king of table tennis. Lahm: “I hardly improved my game. Arne on the other hand has become even stronger and can hardly be beaten anymore.”