It is 2014, and it is time for the World Cup 2014 final—Germany against Argentina—arguably the biggest sports event that year. Mid-July, the air smells of summer and boundless freedom to me. I am fifteen years old. Two of the best teams in the world line up against each other in the Brazilian heat. Only one will come out as a winner. I knew nothing about football then. I only know who Leo Messi is (who doesn’t?) and I know one more thing: I hate German, and I want nothing more but to see the Germans crash and burn during this final, defeated by the fiery Argentinians.

I am a bright-eyed high schooler, and it just so happens that I attend a foreign language high school. I am part of one of the two German classes, which meant I studied German intensely for all five years of high school. Objectively, German has done nothing to me personally, it is just a language like any other, but for some reason I hate it. Annoyingly, I am good at it, getting only “A”s, and that makes me hate it even more. Our teacher and her toxic behavior and blatant favoritism towards certain students in the class were inciting in-class conflicts and were also really not helping to make me fall in love with her beloved Deutsch.

So, as any self-respecting teenager who just has to reject everything and anything around them, I decide that I hate German, I hate everything and everyone German, and I hate Germany. By proxy, I now hate the German national team, too. The commentators on TV are pouring praise on Messi, hailing him and saying how much he deserves to win this World Cup and bring glory to his country. My fifteen-year-old self is lapping up every word they say, nodding and agreeing with them. Leo Messi has got this. He will make Argentina world champs; I was sure of it. It is a matter of time, I thought. Any moment now.

However, I did not know one thing back then, and it is probably the most important thing one should know about the game of football: anything is possible, always.

A young German man I don't know disagrees with me about Argentina’s win right at this very moment. His name is Mario Goetze, and he scores a (beautiful) goal for Germany in the 113th minute of the game, which had gone into extra time. I erupt into rage, throwing a tantrum and crying for Leo Messi’s gone dream of winning the World Cup.

It is 2024, and it is the UEFA European Football Championship 2024’s quarterfinal—Germany against Spain. Beginning of July, the air smells of summer and uncomfortable uncertainty to me. I am twenty-five years old. Two of the best teams in Europe stand against each other amidst Stuttgart Arena in Stuttgart, Germany. Only one will come out as a winner. I know everything about football now. I know the Spanish team and I know the German one, inside out, and I know one more thing: I love the Germans and I really, really want them to win.

But, not for the first time in my quarter century of a life so far, things do not happen the way I want them to, and Germany lose, and they lose by a goal that they conceded in the 119th minute of the added time of the game.

Oh man, it stings.

And, interestingly enough, it stings the same way it stung when Mario Goetze defeated the Argentinians ten years ago, when I was against anything German. I barely remember this now; it is like I was a completely different person back then (of course I was).

A month after Germany beat Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final, I went to a German-language summer camp in a picturesque little town in Austria with some of my classmates. It was such great fun, a whole new experience with some great Austrian teachers, and suddenly I found myself genuinely interested in the language, and not despising it for once. A week and a few German sports magazines later, and I was sitting in front of the TV to watch the German Super Cup game between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Unsurprisingly, most of the German national team players were on the pitch again now, this time dressed in club colors, red and white and yellow and black, and were battling it out again, but for a whole different cause this time. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tiny TV.

So, not long after that 2014 final, any hate I felt towards the Germans was discarded—it had been fabricated anyway (and I was a teen with an ever-changing opinion, c’mon), and I actually found their jubilation endearing. I started learning more about football and watching more of it by the day. The rest is history.

After watching football for ten years, I am more than used to painful losses, but also jubilant wins. I have long stopped throwing tantrums and crying when my team loses (most of the time).

But I do let a few tears slip from my eyes and wet my cheeks as I watch the Spaniards running and jumping around the pitch and the Germans standing in silence or dropping to the ground in Stuttgart.

“That’s football," I think to myself, “c’mon, it’s just football.”

It has never ever been just football to me.

For ten years, it has been my greatest passion in life, one of the things that makes me who I am. Funnily enough, the German national team has always been an intricate part of this passion and of myself, without me having anything to do with the country of Germany whatsoever. And I have a feeling it always will be.