In Stuttgart at the moment, the plaza behind me is full of Spaniards with the red and yellow flag singing “España! España”. A few Tunisians as well, but the spanish definitley outnumber them. They´ve been singing the whole morning, been quite impressd with them, wasn’t really expecting so much.
So back to Australia v Brasil last night. Think when i closed the post that I was off to the FanFest at the Olympic Park to watch the game. Well that didn’t last very long. As i walked down to the U-Bahn (German Metro), there was this long string of crackled German with the word Fan park in it. Two minutes later a much shorter English version comes across saying, “The Fan Park is closed due to overcrowding”. Great. Not surprising considering the huge amounts of people in towm, any game featuring Brasil attracts thousands of hangers on.
The only option was to find a bar, so I went back to the Augustiner Bierhalle that I was in last week. A nice little atmosphere in there, probably more Aussies rather than Brasilians, mixed in with a few brits singing songs about the Ashes! Chris, an old mate of mine from my Barcelona language school days came down as well. Seemed quite a tight game during the first half, the brazilians not really threatening, the Aussies having a few half chances. /at half we left the Bierhalle and found a big screen in the famous “Englischer Garden”, a large park in the centre of Berlin. Was almost cultured watching the game in a leafy grove, except for some very drunk Swiss fans who kept shouting out “LBW” when the Aussies did anything good! Fat boy Ronaldo engineered the first goal for Adriano before Fred knocked in the second. The Aussies did well I thought, Vidukas lob was only inches away from an equaliser. And with the Croats only drawing against Japan they only need a point to qualify for the Round of 16. Brasil meanwhile are just looking average, nothing special, but have already qualified as group winners. So far a 1-0 and a 2-0 win, exactly the same as England.
Later on that evening on my way back to the Train Station, i stumbled into a full blown samba party kicking off in ‘Marieplatz’, the main square. A group of samba drummers were in full flow, the beat ringing round in front of the Althes Rathaus, a huge Gothic building that looms over the plaza. Lots of dancing and flag waving, the famous Brasilian globe alongside the Southern Cross. It’s difficult to beat the samba rhythm for pure energetic dancing.
Finally I caught the ICE train back to Stuttgart around 1am. Thankfully I got a seat and managed to sleep a bit, i finally made it back to the campsite at three-thirty in the morning.
So the second phase of the groups is nearly over. We’re getting to the sharp end of the tournament now where teams will start crashing out, from tomorrow we’ll start losing them at a rate of four a day. Doesn’t look like there are gonna be too many shocks, except perhaps for the French, they’re really struggling again. The Italians have got to be careful as well, that group is still quite open.
Oh yeah, thanks for all the comments that everyones sending in, it´s good to know how things are back in Blighty and Barcelona as well. Keep ’em coming !
“Viva España!” is ringing full blast from the square now!