German Language Stack Exchange is a bilingual question and answer site for speakers of all levels who want to share and increase their knowledge of the German language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
Sign up to join this community
I know that the whole quote is
Der Ball ist rund und das Spiel dauert 90 Minuten
by Sepp Herberger.
I got it from Wikipedia in English only that it means something, and from this page that it must be something inspiring. And I have also checked the Wikipedia in German but I find it is a tall order for me to understand all what is explained.
I come to here to seek an answer by taking a short cut(I know if I have the knowledge of the related history it would be not hard).
The statements by Sepp Herberger were nothing more than stating the obvious: of course the ball is round, and everyone knows that a (normal) soccer game lasts 90 minutes.
There is no story or deeper sense behind that two sentences, just Sepp liking to give interviews and forming humorous statements.
People tried to put sense in these statements later that was not originally in there.
Both statements (der Ball ist rund and das Spiel dauert 90 Minuten) do not belong together and were made in different interviews on different dates.
They became a complete statement later as these were the most striking ones made by Sepp Herberger.
The meanings that were later added to the sayings are:
Der Ball ist rund
The ball can go in any direction, it is not predictable what happens in a soccer game
--> everything can happen
Das Spiel dauert 90 Minuten
In soccer one team can dominate a complete match but does not score even one goal.
Sometimes it happens, that the underdog then in the very last minute of a match gets one single chance and scores, and then wins the game.
Trainers then often use this statement, to say: it is not enough to play good 89 minutes, as every game lasts 90 minutes and the result can be changed within the last second.
It means: We don't have any other facts than these - everything else would be guessing. Anything is possible and there's nothing definitive I can say.
Nobody seems to be mentioning the massive cultural wellspring that this quote spread through society, the movie "Lola Rennt" (Run Lola Run).
https://www.theguardian.com/football/worldcup2006blog/2006/jul/03/theballisroundandkeepson
In the German film Run, Lola, Run there's a scene before the title sequence in which an odd-looking referee throws the ball up in the air. The camera focuses on the ball as it spins in the air, and a narrator says something along the lines of "The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes. That's fact. Everything else is theory."
The accepted answer appears to state that Sepp Herberger did not state these two statements together. If that is so, then someone else did, and then someone else quoted that someone else in the opening scene of the credits.
The phrase became very much circulated both in its original German and into English, where "the ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, that's fact, everything else is theory", was widely introduced into the English speaking world as a thought, or quotable quote, and people like myself who speak both some German and English also went back and discovered the original quote and its pre-movie origins, but I wish to point out that people who have no idea about the quotes author would have heard it in German or English through the film.
It's a saying that although the odds may be heavily in favour of 1 team, a round ball can travel in any direction & thus the underdog (unfavoured team) still has the possibility of winning the game.
The phrase is often used when there is perceived talent mismatch between 2 teams. Since the next 90 minutes are yet unknown, the possibilities are endless.
Even if this very much sounds like a blunt tautology, people have interpreted a lot into this saying: Apparently, it's more important what's not said about football than what's said:
It basically means "Those two are the immutable facts - Everything else is up to the teams and everything else is possible."
The ball has no favorites. It doesn't care if the national champion is heavily favored by bookmakers against an underdog village team. It's indifferent to one's reputation, which has to be proven on the field.
»Der Ball ist rund« reminds me of the Cole Porter musical
while »Ein Spiel dauert 90 Minuten« guides me to the phrase
it’s not over till it’s over
