GDANSK, Poland: Germany coach Joachim Loew has said he will watch his language ahead of today’s Euro 2012 quarter-final with Greece after learning a deaf German lip-reader is tweeting his pitch-side comments.
“I have said some pretty hefty expletives, I have to admit that. So I will probably have to beware of that a little bit more in the future,” said Loew after learning about football-fan Julia Probst.
Under her Twitter account EinAugenschmaus (A Feast for the Eyes), the 30-year-old reads the lips of Germany’s players and coaches whenever the cameras zoom in on their faces during matches.
Under the hashtag Ableseservice (reader service), the Germans’ comments are then immediately tweeted and Probst has picked up Loew occasionally swearing.
“Come on Thomas, don’t give the ball away!” is just one tweet Probst posted seconds after Loew had admonished Thomas Mueller from the German bench for giving the ball away during Germany’s 2-1 win over Holland at Euro 2012.
Probst began turning the Germans’ mutterings into tweets during the 2010 World Cup, because there were more close-ups of faces, she told German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview.
Having built up a following of 20,000 on Twitter, Probst says she prefers to watch the German games in the calm of her own home with her Blackberry in hand. — AFP