World Cup Road Trip World Cup 2006 – The Road Trip – Barcelona to Berlin

2903 kms

Sorry, but prepare yourself for another mini essay ! This world cup is just incredible. Really it’s just so difficult to keep up with all that’s been happening.

Yesterday, for example, I was sitting outside a bar watching the start of the Sweden v Paraguay game, when there’s suddenly a bunch of Ecuadorians celebrating their qualification for the second round. Festooned in the national colours of yellow red and blue, banging Andean drums and dancing all over the street, singing ‘Nos Vamos en Berlin’ (We’re going to Berlin). They were enjoying their moment.

I’m not working on days and dates any more, but group games and kick off times. Everything depends on which team is in what city at which time, which can make travel plans difficult to say the least ! Throw in the fact that I’ve got at least two wine festivals to scheduled (traditional time for them in Germany) over the next week and things get very complicated. But it’s all great, I love it !

Anyway on Wednesday was the Germany v Poland game. I think I need to do a little habit of ‘scene-setting’ here. Back in January when I hatched this mad plan to head off to the World Cup, me and my old German mates from the early Barcelona era, Frank and Dirk, applied for a whole bunch of World Cup Tickets from the FIFA web site. Fixmeister Frank is the expert in this stuff, and worked out how we could get the most applications in. Still we really didn’t expect to get anything. Then in March the emails from FIFA arrived. We had tickets… Germany v Poland in Dortmund, the quarter final in Gelsenkirchen and … THE FINAL IN BERLIN! Yep it’s true, though i still can’t believe it, we do actually have tickets for the final. The only downside is that it says on all the tickets that they are ‘obstructed view’. Whatever, we can handle that.

So the first game was Germany v Poland on Wednesday. But things were further complicated by ‘The Thesis’. Frank, a typical eternal German student, had to finish his thesis. Originally he’d planned to have it done by the beginning of June, but like students the world over he’d left it until the very last minute and negotiated delays and extensions and pushed the deadline out to the 14th June, the day of the match. ‘No problem, I’ll finish it a couple of days earlier, it’s all under control’, said Frank. A couple of days earlier was actually 2pm Wednesday. By the time we sorted ourselves out it was 4pm and we still had to go the 240km to Dortmund for the 9pm kick off.

But no worries, we still had five hours and we’re off to a World Cup game. We took Franks car, giving Bronny a much needed rest. We left Langen, and hit the road up to Dortmund past Frankfurt, spirits were high. Then, from nowhere, we hit the traffic. Classic Autobahn jams, from 140 km/h to 20 km/h in half a kilometre. First one 16km. Crawling along at a max of 60km/h. Get that behind us, only to hit another one half an hour later. Not getting above 40km/h on this one. The clocks ticking, it’s 1830 now, and we’ve still got 150km to Dortmund. Slow panic starts to build. Then suddenly we’re through and away, the road is clear ! Finally we hit Dortmund, a big industrial town, bit like Sheffield in England. Just over an hour before the kick off, straight into the big match traffic. But no worries, we’re in Germany, we have ‘Germany Efficiency’ in full swing, there’s a Park and Ride service with express buses to the ground. We’re gonna make it ! Dump the car and change into match gear, Frank & Dirk wearing German National team shirts, I elect to be safely neutral and wear an Aussie shirt. Jump on the bus, get to the ground with 35 minutes till kick off. All under control.

“Are these your names on the tickets?”, the ticket security guy asks as we get to the first checkpoint. No they’re bloody not. In order to get round the rules for the ticket applications, we had only one of our names as the ‘principal applicants’, but the names of Franks relatives as the other applicants. Later we’d planned to go to a ticket centre and change the names on the tickets, we had all the documentation we needed, but we’d never got round to it. Plus I knew people that had been to games without any problems and got in. But now we were being told we had to go and change the ticket names at Hall 3B on the other side of the complex, with only half an hour till kick off. Shit! No time to soak up the atmosphere as the German and the Poles intermingled on there way to the game, although we did spot some very nice Polish chicks. Finally we see it, Hall 3B and the ticket office. Charge in, only to find it totally empty. Why is it empty? Surely other people have to change the names on the tickets. Up to the desk we run,

Frank (in very fast, stressed German) – “We need to change the names on these tickets”
Desk girl – “Too late, you can only change the name up to 24 hours before the day of the game”
Frank – “So what do we do then?”
Desk girl “I don’t know, try and get in and hope they don’t pick on you”

Great, we’ve been sent halfway round the stadium, and then we’re told by an official to take pot luck with FIFA security. Back out to the stadium complex. This time we get straight through the first line of security with no questions. Only to find we’re on the wrong side of the bloody stadium. Less than 15 minutes till kick off and we’re jogging round to our side of the stadium, the ‘yellow’ zone. Don’t think we’re gonna get a Beer & Bratwurst before the game lads! Finally we get arrive at the yellow are ticket point. Crunch time has come, will they let us in? Just as we get there, I realise that the name on my ticket is Brunhilde, Franks Mums name. Shit, i don’t think i look like a German Frau! The moment comes, hand the tickets over, they put them through the bar code reader, a moments hesitation, and then they wave me through. I’m in, no problems. Frank and Dirk too. We made it!

As we run the 100 metres to the stadium I’m hit by how silent it is. 10 minutes before the kick-off of a World Cup game featuring the host nation, and you can hardly hear any noise. Strange. Then we reach stadium steps, and you hear as if in the distance, the noise of the crowd. As we climb, up and up into the heights of the stadium, the sound gets bigger and bigger, now we can make out the words, ‘Deutschland! Deutschland!’. As we come out onto the concourse and up the last few steps underneath a huge German flag, we’re hit by a wall of sound, and the sight of 80,000 German & Polish fans, chanting and singing, huge flags swirling in a riot of colour. The atmosphere was just so intense, and then, twenty seconds after arriving, the teams come out onto the pitch. Talk about perfect timing!

The Westfalden Stadium in Dortmund really is something special. I’ve been to a few big stadiums over the years, Camp Nou, Anfield, Old Trafford, the MCG, St Mary’s, but this is way up there with the best of them, Four huge stands are perched right next to the pitch, steep terraces rising up to the roof. Totally enclosed, the acoustics are amazing, the atmosphere is right there on top of you. The National anthems were played and the stadium reverberated with the singing. Away in the stand opposite were the Polish fans, proud and strong, waving their red and white flags and banners high. The rest of the stadium was a sea of red, gold and black.

But hang on. Remember the tickets we’d got were ‘obstructed view’?? We’d been afraid we’d be stuck behind some big post being able to see a quarter of the pitch. Well the obstructed view was a position high up in the famous North Terrace, right behind the goal, a perfect view of everything, you really couldn’t have picked a better spot. And absolutely nothing in the way. I’ve no idea what was meant to be blocking our vision, but if all ‘obstructed view’ tickets were like this I’ll take them every time.

So anyway there’s a game of Football to play. The Poles kick off to a huge roar and we’re under way. It all starts off slowly, and pretty much stays that way. The Germans aren’t playing great by a long shot, and the Poles are having a lot of the play and lots of good chances Halfway through the first half I ask Frank & Dirk what they makes of it so far.

Frank – “Can’t talk, too nervous”
Dirk – “They play very bad the Germans. But this is German Football. Play bad, then one goal!”

The game continues in much the same vein. A couple of corners for the Germans, the fans are do this handshaking build up as the guy prepares to take the corner, finishing with a big shout as he kicks it. But they come to nothing. We spot Lothar Mattheus up in the commentary box above us. I suggest they substitute him for Ballack, he’d probably do a better job. Dirk agrees. Maybe they could put Beckenbauer back in defence as well. In the last minute of the first half, a great chance for the Germans, but the ball screws wide of the far post. Half time comes and there’s a lot of frustrated Germans around me. Down to the concourse for Beer & Bratwursts. Unfortunately due to FIFA licensing, it’s only crappy American stuff, instead of full on German Weissbeer. But the Bratwursts were good.

Second half, and the Poles are playing for time a lot. Not sure why really, they need to get a result out of this game, or else they could well be out of the tournament. Still neither team are creating many clear cut chances, and the Germans look decidedly ordinary. The locals are getting restless, lots of shouting of “Scheisse” and other stuff that i’ve got no hope of understanding. The referee is not their favourite person either, he seems to be blowing up for a lot of petty things.

As we creep up to ninety minutes it pretty much looks like it’s gonna be a goalless draw. Shame, would have been good to see a goal in this Stadium, but guess it’s not to be. Suddenly though a German chance,! No, it’s hit the bar … rebound … hit the bar again ! Don’t believe it. It’s a draw.

Then in the 91st minutes a long ball from midfield finds the winger on the right flank. Skipping a challenge he rifles the ball low into the box, there’s a German striker ahead of the Polish defender and … “TOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!”. The stadium erupts. 60,000 Germans go mental. Klinsmanns off the bench and dancing around with the team. The Poles are gutted, they’ve worked hard only to be hit with a sucker punch. A minute later, the final whistle blows, the stadium goes wild again. German flags everywhere, the whole stadium on it’s feet jumping and singing.

The German players do a lap of honour, don’t know if they should be doing that after that performance, as the Poles troop slowly off the pitch, out of the tournament. Everybody’s singing some song about going to Berlin for the final. Not sure about that lads, little premature maybe, you’re not exactly setting the world on fire at the moment. But Dirk was right, “One goal”, he’d said and that was exactly how it happened. One goal and the Germans win, football sterotypes never change!

The ground stayed full of people celebrating for a full half hour after kick off. We slowly made our way back through the hordes of drunk happy Germans, and drunk sad Poles, there was absolutely no sign of trouble at the ground, although i heard there were a few problems in the city centre later. Then it was back to the car and the long drive back to Langen, in all the round trip was 470km. We finally got back at three in the morning.

Yep, it was a real amazing experience, the first World Cup game I’d been to, and I’m not going to forget it. I really can’t put into words the moment when we finally walked into the cauldron of the Westfalstadion, it was very special, shivers down the spine stuff. And then the last minute goal, it was almost like it was scripted.

Anyway what else has been happening. At the moment i’m in Frankfurt, staying in a campsite for a couple of nights. Yesterday watched the England game at the Frankfurt ‘Main Arena’ FanFest site, which is the best i’ve seen yet. Two huge screens in the middle of the river mean you can watch the game from the riverbanks. The river traffic carries on through whilst the games are going on, a huge container barge floating past as Beckham floats over a cross, the crew out on deck trying to catch a glimpse of what is going on, quite a bizarre sight. Once again the game was exactly brilliant, but Crouchy came could, and then Stevie Gerrard knocked in a ‘HammerTor’ (‘Tor’ is the German word for Goal, a ‘HammerTor’ is when someone blasts the ball into the back of the net). So we’re safely through to the second round, and if we get a point against Sweden we win the group. Probably for a second round game against Ecuador.

Spain have made the first statement to the tournament with their 4-0 win over the Ukraine. They hit top gear from the start, and against a pretty strong team as well. A lot of people thought that Ukraine were gonna win that one. Be interesting to watch the Spanish now, knowing the media there back in Spain they’re getting carried away already and are only talking about possible quarter finals and semi finals opponents!

Today will probably be back at the FanFest here for the Argentina v Serbia game, then maybe out on the town later to experience a bit of German nightlife. Maybe a Techno club later ! The next few days are not going to be so ‘football’ oriented. I’ve decided to take a rest from dashing round the country catching games, because it is bloody tiring. The tournaments only 7 days old, there’s still a hell of a lot more to come. I’ll still be watching the football though, don’t worry about that! I’ll be in Kaiserslautern for a wine festival this weekend, then I imagine the next thing will be to take Bronny down to Stuttgart for the Spanish game against Tunisia. Still haven’t seen one other Spanish car on the road here yet, she’s getting lonely!