Few people are in a better position than Bernd Bransch to welcome as a “refreshing change for Germany” the flag-waving that is accompanying the national team’s progress through the football World Cup.

The imposing defender who captained communist East Germany’s team in the 1974 cup – the last time the competition was staged in Germany – remembers no displays of “such relaxed patriotism” back then, in either the west or the east.