Sport is about winning but winning is not everything, especially in football

Recently, former Bayern Munich midfielder Toni Kroos was asked about Germany’s defeat to Spain in EURO 2024. He compared it to one specific defeat which makes Bayern Munich fans everywhere want to tear their hair out or burst into tears. Kroos would go onto have an extremely prolific career, winning six UEFA Champions League titles overall, but he still brought up that defeat. And sometimes, defeats like that attract so much sympathy that it makes a team gain new fans as our very own Ineednoname would tell you:

In fact, I can tell you the same. I knew very little about the game when I watched Germany succumb to Brazil in the 2002 World Cup final. And I felt their pain so thoroughly that German football gained a new supporter that day.

Germany and Bayern though are both highly prolific teams and have trophy cabinets which most teams can only dream of. In Bayern’s so-called “one team league”, stadiums are filled regularly by fans of teams like Borussia Mönchengladbach (last major trophy: DFB-Pokal winners, 1995), FC Köln (DFB-Pokal winners, 1983), Borussia Dortmund (DFB-Pokal winners, 2021), SC Freiburg (DFB-Pokal runners-up: 2022) and so many more. Aside from Dortmund, all these clubs have been relegated in the past two decades, some more than once. And yet, supporters flock to the gates week in, week out.