Our man in Deutschland
15 June 2006, 10:57
Josh Dean, the Newletter’s correspondent in Germany, writes in about yesterday’s big victory:
“Oh man. The first thing I heard this morning when I woke up, at noon, in a beer-y fog, was the voice of a young boy, of bike-with-training-wheels age, chanting “Lu-kas Podol-ski!” in the street outside my window. And on goes the celebration. It’s fitting that the Germans would have a bank holiday scheduled for the day after a last gasp, extra time goal that sends the beloved national team on to the next round. Because when I went to bed at 4—having been kicked out of the last Irish pub, after one bier haus after another shut its doors for the night, kicking me and Germany out to the curb—there remained roving packs of red, yellow and black clad fans climbing light poles, waving flags and chanting “Deutsch-land!” nearly 5 hours after the team stole victory from kissing its sister.
“I don’t know that anything I could recount in words would accurately portray what happened in Cologne’s Heumarkt last night, in a packed square abutting one of the two FIFA fanfests where big screens show the action live, but I’m not sure I ever want to go back to my regular life, where wearing your flag as a cape is not acceptable behavior and the daily schedule does not revolve around three 90-minute soccer games, any one of which could spark a street festival or riot.
“Technically I’ve been to a World Cup before—1994 in the U.S.—but now having attended one in Europe, well, that doesn’t count. As I said to my friend yesterday, the only way we could come close to replicating the experience would be to only play games in the Northeast—say, New York, Philly, Boston, Washington, um, Newark? – and even then we don’t have a dozen participating nations within open-border driving distance. And drinking in the streets is not nearly as accepted.
“I am now headed toward Kaislerslautern, with the hopes that last Monday was an aberration, that Eddie Johnson and John O’Brien start, that Bruce Arena forever banishes the short corner, as well as the free kick played not at the goal, but rather to the corner, where the team cannot even manage to create a decent cross, and that at least some of the thousand or so fans who drank, sang, danced and chanted (my favorite: “Nobody likes us, and we don’t care!”) for hours leading up to the game in downtown Gelsenkirchen have not all sulked back to their lives across the pond, pining for the days of Bruce Murray. Probably we’ll lose again. But Italy is always susceptible to collapse. Totti is a flopping whiner. And a win changes everything…
“Ok, I need a bratwurst. Auf widerseng, or however you spell it.”
Thanks, Josh, and good luck.
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