Like a Bottle empty
By: Jan | June 25th, 2007The most famous press conference in Bundesliga history. The club: Bayern Munich. The season: 1997/1998. The occasion: Bayern Munich had lost against Schalke 04 two days ago. A serious blow to their championship campaign. Eventually they lost the title to Kaiserslautern. Main protagonist: coaching legend Giovanni Trapattoni. Absent protagonist: Thomas Strunz. Trapattoni landed a lot of advertising deals afterwards, and Strunz was all of a sudden a famous German football player.
What is more astounding though, is that Trapattoni managed to instantly add between two to three phrases to the German vocabulary (at least the colloquial one) with just one short public appearance. And he did that without even being a fluent German speaker. But his rudimentary German skills combined with his emotional outburst produced unprecedented comedic and poetic beauty.
Here is a short version (original length of his speech was 3m30s) with English subtitles.
1. Like a Bottle empty / Wie eine Flasche leer
You can use this phrase in any situation where you are exhausted, worn out, kaputt and nothing seems to work out anymore. Usually works well in sports contexts but can be used in other situations as well. Just say that you are like a bottle empty.
2. What dare Strunz?! Was erlauben Strunz?!
Sometimes used when you do something wrong or underperform at something where it really doesn’t matter. So it’s more likely used to cheer you up rather than to put you down. Although not as common as the other ones. Thomas Strunz had a talk show on television once that was titled “Was erlauben Strunz?” and nowadays he writes weekly features about the Bundesliga for stern.de. This feature is titled “Was erlauben Strunz?” as well.
3. I have ready / Ich habe fertig
The most popular of the three. Although while the video translates it as “I have ready” it’s probably better to say “I have done.” because he meant to say “I am done.” as in “I have nothing more to say”. Anyway, the result of his press conference was that you can now say either “I have done.” or “I am done.”. The Social Democrats party successfully campaigned with this sentence against then chancellor Helmut Kohl. It was shortlisted for German word of the Year 1998.
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Tags: 1. Bundesliga, Backstory, FC Bayern Munich, FC Schalke 04, Giovanni Trapattoni, Highlights, Press ConferenceSubscribe
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Comments
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Wow! Such fire, such passion, such… bad German (according to the subtitles). Can you add a little context here, Jan? What was he so worked up about?
Posted from
United States
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Bayern had lost 1-0 against Schalke two days earlier and it was a big blow to their championship campaign. Trapattoni won the Bundesliga title in the previous year but wasn’t happy with his current squad. He still won the DFB Cup that year though. I think this is also the FC Hollywood era. Bayern got that nickname because it had so many players that were drama queens who constantly made headlines so it’s understandable that you can get a bit worked up at times.
And this mix of passion and broken grammar just had a lot of comedic value but as the post points out also generated phrases that were so unique and of the “you can’t make those up” type that they were instantly adopted into our language use. And he received so much sympathy and approval for what he said and did from everybody fterwards. It wasn’t like “oh, let’s make fun of that guy who can’t speak german properly”. The German social democrats party even successfully campaigned against then chancelor Helmut Kohl by using Trapattonis famous last words “I have done. / Ich habe fertig.” on billboards together with a photo of Kohl. And today Trapattoni still has advertising deals for e.g. table water where he has to spin his words and say “not like a bottle empty”. anyway, I guess it’s all something that can be best appreciated when you actually speak german, though I just came across a subtitled version on youtube and had to post it.:-)
Posted from
Germany -
Thanks so much for phases and explanations! I really want my German to be more natural sounding (not like I’m just talking out of a textbook) and I’ll definitely remember these – thanks!!
Posted from
United States
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