By: Hunter Ding

Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national train carrier, is one of the sponsors for the Euro 2024 men’s soccer tournament, and a standard-bearer of the event’s ecological credentials. Unfortunately for fans and participants alike, it has proved to be fairly unreliable.

Niclas Füllkrug, one of the forwards for the German national team, arrived early at the Adidas campus just outside the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach. The staff had askedteam players to arriveon a Monday morning, a few days before the opening game against Scotland. Instead, Niclas showed up on Sunday night having decided to make the journey from Hanover on Deutsche Bahn.

However, years of failing to upgrade rolling stock, highways, and digitize signal boxes have made Deutsche Bahn susceptible to delays and cancellations. For months, Germans have been warning that this could cause problems. By the time Füllkrug got to Herzogenaurach, he had been traveling several hours longer than expected.

Deutsche Bahn has been an essential centerpiece of the Euro 2024 tournament. The company offered discounted prices on “climate-friendly train travel,” a reference to the event’s ecological credentials. However, as fans flooded into Germany from all over the world, the rail system was beginning to falter. Staff members from the Munich transport authority have been dispatched to distribute ice pops to overheated travelers waiting for delayed and stalled trains.

Instead of arriving via trains through a main hall, some travelers have been redirected through large wooden tunnels that lead toward the city in lieu of trains. However, some fans found the tunnels so disorienting that they turned back and retraced their steps in the hope of exiting the station faster.

Deutsche Bahn may have been a central part of Germany’s plans for the Cup, but it’s a messy one. Though the tournament runs smoothly for now, it remains to be seen whether the train delays and cancellations will improve. the chaos of Deutsche Bahn just might derail everything.