Lukas Podolski turns 40: Cheers to us

When you slid across the pitch in Munich in 2006, your face bright red after scoring the second goal against Sweden, I was a fan at the public viewing in a miniature Berlin stadium, more than I would ever be again in my life. Red-faced from all the beer, red-faced from all the sun shining on this tournament and on my life in those weeks, red-faced with happiness, I screamed like a Backstreet Boy Girl, certain that the kiss on the hand from Brian Litrell or Howie D. was meant for her personally. As if you had scored that second goal simply for me. Do you know that, against all reason, I bet money on you to be the tournament's top scorer? After that, you were drawn out into the wide world. I forgive you the Munich chapter, also because you didn't become a winning machine there, but rather failed a bit defiantly. The coaches actually expected you to train—to offer yourself with hard work, to put pressure on the established stars. But you just want to play. Have fun, shoot with your left foot, then trot around a bit. If things aren't going well, then you'll just get better next week. But that's not how people think in Munich. So you often sit on the bench, and while your counterpart Schweini slowly develops into a star, someone who would be entirely capable of living up to his full surname, you simply remain Poldi. Which is why I have to defend you more and more in bar conversations. Which is why I'm fraternizing with you even more. A grade of 6 in the DFB tombstone. 2012, two successful tournaments behind you, and you've long since returned to Cologne—it's a strange year. You've scored 18 times in the Bundesliga, more than ever, yet you're becoming a byproduct of the national team. The Götzes and Schürrles are starting to challenge you for your place; after all, they're young and hungry, hungrier than you've probably ever been. They're technically stronger, at least if you take the average of both feet, and they better fit the requirements of modern football. At the 2012 European Championship, in your native Poland and Ukraine, they overtake you. You're substituted at halftime against Italy. Kicker etched a 6 on your potential DFB tombstone. After that, you moved over to London to join Arsenal, the club I always liked in England. Which rekindled the love. I watched all your first games live, and when you scored your first goal, in Liverpool after a pass from Santi Cazorla, I ran—sober and now halfway grown up—jubilantly through the shared apartment corridor. I wrote the first newspaper article of my life about your new start in England. And the English loved you too. For a while, you blasted everything to pieces with your left foot. Just like I later, they couldn't understand why Wenger didn't rely on you anymore.

True love exists without reward

At the World Cup in Brazil, your ally Jogi Löw had brought you along despite criticism, but you were sitting on the bench. Which is why I can't really get into it anymore. My alienation from the national team had been building for some time, and when Löw substituted Schürrle and Götze instead of you in the final, it became clear to me that I'd never have to get a Poldi tattoo (as I announced in 2006)—if he scored the winning goal in the World Cup final. After all, your teammates won the title you'd worked so hard for.

After that, your career peters out. Things aren't going well in London, and nothing at all in Milan. You score again in Istanbul, but nobody takes the league seriously. At the 2016 European Championship, you're no longer a factor. You're given a few minutes—for me, the most exciting of the tournament—in the already-decided round of 16 match against Slovakia. For a short time, I'm fully involved. Are you making a fuss? Can I shout around the table again that I knew it all along? No. You don't score.