Deutschland

The first image that comes to most minds when they hear the name Germany is unfortunately that of the butterfly moustached monster named Hitler. However I, like many a car lover always think of Germany as some kind of a diamond mine for the most high quality, beautiful automobiles. As the land of Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and Audi, it is impossible to ignore the enormously significant contribution of Germans in pushing the limits of the most beautiful machines human hands can create. Not only that, they manage to maintain their finicky attention to product build quality at the same time.

I guess that's the main reason why I end up supporting their national team at every FIFA World Cup. The German soccer team has all the characteristics of teams that I love to hate like Manchester United in the English Premier League and Australia in the cricketing world. They are a hard nosed bunch of players who firmly believe in the philosophy of "Winner takes all". Yet from the days of Juergen Klinnsmann in 1994, I have always been a German fan in every football World Cup. Come the World Cup, the Germans take up their positions grim faced to battle it out as a team focussed on straightforward victory rather than emphasise on any kind of flair or individual skill. Put them in a tough situation and any whiff of a fight-back chance, they will come around with a vengeance, a fact that every one of their opponents acknowledges. They also end up doing spectacularly well in every World Cup, without having any flamboyant or remarkably gifted players in their ranks. At some level, I am so infatuated with the cars that they build that I expect their human football team to run like a smoothly oiled machine too and for that unique robot like ability, they have my support!