Every Sixteen Years in Summer

1974, Football World Cup in Germany – no, rather in the FRG, as this commune of anti-revanchists prefer to say, which is just now preparing their shared apartment for the mandatory plenary meeting and made political awareness training a part of their everyday routine. But there is always something that trips up the noble ideals of the commune – either the promise of a professional career, or jealousy and greed, or the secret longing for a more gentrified lifestyle. And indeed, there is a lot more going on in the lives of these World Cup-obsessed residents: Drugs, for example, or love; the Communist Party; police raids – and almost casually, a home birth. 1974: “Germany” wins the World Championship. Switch to 1990, Football World Cup in Italy. The commune has split up into small families and single households. But the relationships they have built quickly become brittle, particularly when old passions flare up again. And the children, including the “home born”, have not grown up enough to stop being a source of parental worry. The country, too, has changed radically in the moths since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only one thing is the same: Germany wins the World Cup. Switch to 2006, the World Cup is hosted by the now-unified homeland. While this summer’s tale is going on outside, the remaining roommates, including their present or former significant others, kick around unpleasant truths and long overdue breakups on the inside. Some get up and go, while others sideline themselves in frustration. And the Championship title is a lost cause as well.