Trouble and turmoil for the German nation team. Captain Michael Ballack has fallen out with Joachim Löw. By the looks of things, Kevin Kuranyi is gone for good, and rumours of Torsten Frings packing his things are also growing. Who will be next?
Experts and fortune-tellers alike are trying to predict, which player will be next on the hit list. One pundit came up with an extra-ordinary explanation, dubbed the “Nutella Fluch,” or the “Nutella Curse.” Tagesspiegel, a renowned German paper, even called the chocolate-hazelnut cream spread “The Dark Power Of German Football.”
So what makes the creamy Nutella spread so dangerously to warrant such an apocalyptic nick-name? Apparently, starring in a Nutella TV advertisement is not the best way to guarantee an extended stay in the national team.
Nutella started running TV adds with German internationals in 2004. All the internationals selected were young players, the up and coming stars of German football, dubbed the “Nutella-Jungs” or the “Nutella Boys.”
Kevin Kuranyi, Benjamin Lauth, Andreas Hinkel, and Arne Friedrich were selected to be the faces of the advertisement campaign. The general idea was that these players would be in the national side for many years to come, ensuring a lot of exposure in the media.
This all turned out quite differently then Nutella and the players involved had hoped. Lauth was one of the first victims of the curse. He moved from the national team to long bus trips in the second division with 1860 München. As a one-time candidate for the national ski team, maybe he's wishing he made a different choice?
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