Mon 24 Apr 06
The town of bent necks
Two brothers in a small German town founded a shoe company in the 1920s. After an absolutely brutal falling out, one of them left to start up a competing firm, and the rivalry continues to this day:
There is only one feud in Herzogenaurach worthy of mention and it’s between Adidas and Puma. Founded in the town by two warring brothers, the international sportswear giants have been based here since the 1940s, and their age-old rivalry is legendary.
And, with less than two months to go until the World Cup in Germany, the battle is unparalleled in its intensity. To kit out the winning World Cup team is the ultimate prize for any sports manufacturer. Companies spend billions each year sponsoring the top stars and the most popular teams at football tournaments all over the world in an attempt to raise their brand’s profile.
Some believe the firm that wins the sponsorship battle on home turf will be crowned the outright winner in Herzogenaurach’s decade-long sports shoe war. Others say, whatever happens, it will just make the one-upmanship worse. Adidas is kitting out six teams. Puma, long regarded as the underdog in the fraternal war, is quietly claiming that it has already won, since it has 12 teams on side.
“Some of the stories you hear are just mind-blowing,” says Filip Trulsson, marketing manager of team sports at Puma. The Swedish-born 33-year-old has a Scandinavian sanguinity about him, and a detachment from local politics that has probably prevented him from going mad during the eight years he has spent working in this conservative countryside town. “Puma people not marrying Adidas people, Adidas and Puma gangs in the schools, pubs loyal to one firm refusing to serve workers from the other, it’s all gone on here,” he said, shaking his head. “But there are a lot more international people here nowadays. I think the locals take it all far more seriously than the foreigners do.”
Herzogenaurach has been described as “the town of bent necks,” as no local would start a conversation with another without first looking down to check which firm’s shoes they were wearing.
At first I was going to write that Puma may be supplying more teams this summer, but that the Adidas nations - including Germany, France, Spain and Argentina - have a better chance of winning. In fact, FIFA ranks some of the Puma countries much higher than people assume: the Czech Republic are ranked second in the world, Japan is an astonishing 17th, and the Iranians are 22nd.
England, of course, will be kitted out in Umbro gear, while the top-ranked Brazilians wear Nike. Everyone’s official World Cup kit can be viewed and purchased here.
Damian P.
