WHILE Berlin is Germany's political centre and Frankfurt claims to be the country's spiritual heart, Stuttgart is the German city with most economic clout.

London might have its financial core and Paris its cultural chic, but Stuttgart boasts the highest standard of living of any city in Europe. Step out of your city centre hotel and it does not take long to see why.

Breathing modern-day success, Stuttgart is a homage to technological development. Its skyline is dominated by a series of shining stars - not celestial ones, but the three-pointed symbol of Daimler-Benz, the corporate embodiment of German success.

In 1882, Gottlieb Daimler bought a villa in nearby Cannstatt and set about inventing a light, fast-moving internal combustion engine, powerful enough to power a moving vehicle. In 1885 he invented the motorbike and, a year later, a motorboat and a four-wheeled car had been added to his list of achievements.

By incredible co-incidence, another Stuttgart resident, Carl Benz, was also working on the invention of the motor car. He brought out his own model in the same year as Daimler and, while the two men did not know each other at that stage, they went on to establish worldwide motoring empires from their separate Stuttgart bases.

The two businesses were merged in 1926 and have since become part of the transatlantic Daimler-Chrysler network that sponsors Stuttgart FC's home.

Stuttgart was also home to the Bohemian-born Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of Porsche and the creator of the original Volkswagen - a car that was first commissioned by Adolf Hitler - and Robert Bosch, the founder of the electronics giant that shares his name.

The concentration of so many business behemoths lends Stuttgart an air of both opulence and functionality.

There is money in the city, but there is none of the flamboyance or ostentatious flouting that characterises other economic powerhouses. Instead, there is an efficiency and detachment that speaks of cold-headed success. With huge chunks of the German economy faltering, that success is proving ever more important to the country as a whole.

Middlesbrough's visit might not have captured the imagination of much of the city, but Stuttgart is in the throes of football fever. The World Cup comes to Germany this summer, and Stuttgart hosts four group games, a second-round match that could be England v Germany, and the third-place play-off.

Preparations are well underway and, while the state-of-the-art Gottlieb-Daimler Stadion is ready for action, the rest of the city is undergoing a huge footballing face-lift.

Already, huge bags of footballs hang from the branches of every tree in the city and a 60-foot steel ball is almost assembled on the north side of the Schillerplatz.

Goodwill and excitement are in plentiful supply but, sadly, tickets are not. The German press is full of stories condemning FIFA for the swathes of tickets that will go to corporate guests and it seems the hosts would even prefer more England fans than an army of freeloaders unwilling to add to the World Cup atmosphere.

Steve McClaren was amused to learn that Armin Veh had replaced Giovanni Trapattoni as Stuttgart manager as the German provides a link to one of the strangest matches in Middlesbrough's recent history.

Veh was the manager of Hansa Rostock when Boro travelled to Germany for a pre-season friendly in July 2004.

The subsequent 3-1 defeat became notorious when referee Robert Hoyzer admitted he had ruled out a Joseph-Desire Job goal and awarded the hosts an undeserved penalty to test how easy it would be to fix a football match.

Later that year, Hoyzer did it for real, influencing the result of nine German league games as part of a match-fixing ring.

The disgraced official once claimed he would buy the 40 travelling Middlesbrough fans a drink if they ever returned to Germany. It is unlikely he kept to his word yesterday as he is currently in the early stages of a 29-month prison term.