That’s the thing about fairytales: they don’t have to make sense in advance. They just start, and implicitly we accept the premise, however far-fetched. A cruel prince is turned into a grotesque beast by a beggar woman bearing an enchanted rose: fine, fine. That pumpkin is actually a carriage: OK, fair enough. Anxious host nation on a run of horrific tournament failures wrap up their opening game within 20 minutes while playing football from the spheres: we’re listening.
And as the fireworks went off in cities across Germany, as the fan zones rumbled and erupted, as pilsners and radlers were spilled in pub gardens across the land, you could sense a nation slowly and happily coming to terms with its new reality. A reality in which the indignities of the past were buried under fresh flurries of fresh memories. The time for angst and introspection is over. Over these 90 brutally efficient minutes, Germany rediscovered its sense of imperial poise.
