The Winning Streak

That summer Germany’s football team couldn’t lose. Every match felt predetermined, like watching something that was supposed to happen finally happen. The whole country had permission to care without irony. It was strange.

My friend organized a watch party. Nothing elaborate—just burgers, cheap cider, people drifting in and out of a space that got hot and loud by halftime. Someone had hung a bunch of Adiletten from the tree out back like some kind of fever dream decoration. Stupid detail, but it worked. It told you everything about the mood: nobody was pretending this was serious, but everyone wanted to be there anyway.

Leni showed up actually knowing how to play football, which made the rest of us look like we’d never held one. She spent half the match demonstrating why with a ball at her feet. The weather couldn’t decide—rain, then sun, then rain again. I remember the sky more than the score.

By the time the match ended with Germany cruising to another victory, I was thinking about that phrase people use for moments like this. Culture. Presence. Time and place. Not in some precious literary way—just the simple fact that a room full of us were experiencing the same small electric thing at the same moment. Eating badly, drinking worse, nobody caring because the football was doing what it was supposed to do. Those nights don’t come that often. When they do, you notice.