Oh yikes, suddenly everything is like it used to be.

The top places in the TV ratings are taken by football broadcasts, an occasional “Ah” or “Oh” can be heard from open windows in the neighborhood, even in small groups Germans sit together and not only feverishly with their own team, but also watch neighboring nations like the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Switzerland get a massive kick of it.

And the first flags are also hanging on the car or in the flower box on the balcony.

You haven't seen anything like this for a long time.

So beautiful.

Or so.

Admittedly, it took people a while to get into a certain EM mood. The emotional alienation from the DFB team over the past three years had left its mark. There were also great reservations about tournament games in cities, which a few weeks earlier had made a name for themselves as Corona hotspots (and will possibly do so again, see London, St. Petersburg). All of this has not been forgotten, but is now being suppressed with pleasure.

Loew and his family may have sold themselves as a tournament team before the European Championship, their compatriots are definitely a tournament audience.

If the ball rolls long enough, almost no one can resist its stimulus. Incidentally, this also applies elsewhere, as only the last two European championship games of the world champions achieved top ratings in France.

We know from previous tournaments that the pleasure of kicking outweighs sooner or later.

And it will probably be the same for the coming ones (World Cup in Qatar!).

The fact that the local supermarkets are still full of unsold flags, fruit gums and other nonsense in black, red and gold is not a bad sign.

An unprecedented global health crisis will not turn into a new German summer fairy tale overnight.

The mood is more relaxed than it was weeks ago, but not exuberant.

Most of them have to gradually get used to the return to their old joie de vivre after the necessary long-term isolation. From one state of emergency to the next without a transition, people don't tick. Even if UEFA, with its cynical bread-and-games policy, pretends that all of Europe wants nothing but the roaring twenties of football. Every magic, including this exciting week of football with spectacular results, is annoying.