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

km 4379

Ouch, a week almost since my last proper post. Last week the group games were going on, and now we’re arriving at the quarter final phase. After two days of rest from football and FanFests, tomorrow the circus kicks in again, four top class matches in two days.

At least I think it’s four. Watching the German press and TV you’d think there was just one. Germany v Argentina is the only game in town here. Wall to wall coverage of the German team, press conferences every five minutes, analysis of the height of the German defenders compared to the lightning ‘dwarves’, Tevez and Messi, of the Argentineans. Although ‘De Bild’ (equivalent of The Sun) did manage to take a time out from blanket coverage to take a close inspection of the part of the pitch where Beckham threw up against Ecuador.

Germany is really on a high at the moment. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this World Cup has really given the people a chance to feel proud and patriotic again. My friends here are saying that they’ve never seen such scenes, before it was almost unthinkable to go around waving the German Flag. People are going around with face paints and flags, outside of game days as well. One of the guys here has painted his car in the black red and yellow of the national colours. Everybody really believes that they can win at the moment, confidence has gone through the roof. It’s certainly a great time to be in the country. I keep drawing comparisons with England during Euro ’96, the first time I’d really seen common people waving the St Georges Cross proudly, everybody really behind the team and believing that we would go all the way.

And I must admit that the German team has really started to believe in themselves as well, that last minute winner against Poland the German train rolling, and it’s gonna take a tough team to stop them. Well they’ve got a tough team, Argentina, maybe the best performer in the tournament so far. It’s gonna be a classic game in Berlin on Friday night.

The only thing that’s really interrupted the football coverage is the death of Bruno. Poor Bruno. Bruno was the first Bavarian Brown Bear to be spotted in Germany for years, suddenly appearing in the forest. He was becoming a bit of a celebrity, until he started picking on some of the local sheep. So someone high up in the Government decided that he had to go. And on Tuesday they shot him. Uproar !! No one could believe that they’d murdered this rare Bavarian Bear. The guy who’d made the decision started getting hate mail and death threats, it all kicked off! And every TV show on Tuesday night had a RIP Bruno message of some sort. ‘De Bild’ included a Double Page poster of him with a huge “Goodbye Bruno” caption. Believe me this country is more than a little crazy at the moment!

So anyway i guess I’ll give a quick summary of the past week, pretty much the norm of hammering round the country going to the various FanFests.

Friday 23rd – the Langen Apple Wine festival – Around this region the local tipple is Apple wine, and this time of year they have traditional festivals. The whole town gets decorated, they bring a fair into town, people open up there gardens and everyone just comes out into the streets and drink jugloads of the stuff! It’s actually pretty nice, takes a couple of glasses to get used to, after that it just flies down ! Later on we ended up at the only nightclub in town, which was packed wall to wall with dodgy looking locals, and probably the worst DJ I’ve ever seen, playing the weirdest mix of music. A top night!

Saturday 24th – Frankfurt FanFest for Germany v Sweden – Imagine getting up at 10am after getting in at 5am the night before, then catching a train to go to the city centre and queue for an hour and a half in 35 degree temperatures, to get in front of a big screen, where you still had to wait three hours before the kick off, All the time surrounded by 10,000 drunk and chanting Germans. Well that was what i had last Saturday. It was actually really good fun, once we finished the queuing i stayed nice and neutral, even though deep down i was siding with the Vikings. As you can imagine, the whole place went pretty mental with the two early goals, and after that the Swedes really weren’t in it much. Later that evening we watched what turned out to be the best game of the round of 16, Argentina beating Mexico an incredible strike from Maxi Rodriguez. We were watching with the “alternative commentary” option on, which was from Argentina, you should have heard them scream when that goal went in. Was a shame to see the Mexicans go out, there fans have been brilliant throughout the tournament, they were all over the country, such a proud but friendly people.

Sunday 25th – Stuttgart, “One more Maultaschen for Beckham!” – Despite hearing reports of trouble in Stuttgart overnight we headed down for the England v Ecuador game, Frank and his mate Marcus had tickets, while me, Dirk and Daniel, a Stuttgart local, all headed off to the FanFest. But before that we had some real local fare, a classic Stuttgart dish called “Maultaschen”, which is made of layers of pasta filled with meat. On top you put this traditional onion sauce. It was great, best food I’d had in about a week! After putting away a couple i was cajoled to eat “One more Maultaschen for Beckham, he needs it to score”. Eat it I did, and you all know what happened later in the game!

What was very strange was the atmosphere in town. After the trouble between English and German fans a couple of nights earlier, i was expecting a tense, aggressive feeling in the centre. But when we arrived the town was really quiet, much more than the Spanish and Aussie games I’d been to in the same city. There were a lot of England fans around still, but not nearly as many as I’d expected. We got into the FanFest without even queuing. And there it was really muted, a few “England, England” chants, and a few idiots singing about the war, but it was really low key. Even when the game started there was very little noise. Maybe the heat and the drink had something to do with it, there were a few lads who’d definitely had a skinful and had passed out on the floor! The only moment of excitement in the whole game (both on and off the pitch!), was when Beckham knocked in his free kick. Later in the evening we went to a nice bar with a big screen to watch the Holland v Portugal war. I loved that shot of Deco and the Dutch players sitting together, like school kids watching a game, just after they’d been sent off.

Monday 26th – Kaiserslautern – “Italian Robbery” – Another day, another city, this time Kaiserslautern for the Italy v Australia game. After all I couldn’t break the streak of following the Aussies round the tournament. To be honest we were all pretty wasted from drinking far too many WeissBeers in Stuttgart the night before, and after hardly seeing a thing in the first half ‘cos the FanFest was so packed, we ended up watching the rest of the game sitting on the floor in a bookmakers! And after watching the Aussies pretty much outplay the Azzurri for 90 minutes, suddenly a blue shirt is falls over, the referee points to the spot, and Totti, cool as you like, dispatches the penalty. I think at that moment Australia really arrived in world football. Not in terms of their performance or anything like that. No, just that they now know exactly how it feels to crash out of a major tournament with a last minute twist. Welcome to the “Robbed at the World Cup” club boys!

Tuesday 27th – Frankfurt – “Adios España” – Watching at the Frankfurt FanFest, I was quite down when Spain got dumped out by the French. How do they manage it? How do Spain always promise so much, and then when it really matters fall short? After carving out three wins in the group including a 4-0 hammering against Ukraine, I really thought they could go far this year. And I really (and still) don’t rate the French team, there too individualistic and getting too old. Zidane still has skills as he showed, but only if you give him the time. It all looked good early on with a Villa Penalty, but after the Ribery equaliser the Spanish just didn’t get at the French players, they sat off them and allowed them to play. It was almost inevitable when Viera scored the second (from a foul won by Henry diving). and by the time Zidane scored the third when Spain had given up.

Living in Spain for 4 years, i know and love the country and it’s people, and i really hoped they would go far this year. A Spanish team doing well in a major tournament would do wonders for a country which is traditionally very regionally oriented, it would bring people together and would really boost the national pride. But once again they’ve managed to throw it away when it looked like they were really starting to believe. Very frustrating!

So onto tomorrow, and the quarter finals are ready to go, there’s eight strong teams left in the competition, this is where the road to Berlin really gets tough. Tomorrow am heading off to Köln, where were meeting up with an old Barcelona friend to catch Germany v Argentina. That is going to be very interesting. Italy v Ukraine in the evening, and then on Saturday we’re off to Gelsenkirchen ! Yes, everything has come good as far as the draw’s gone and I’ll at the stadium to see the Three Lions take on Portugal. Really getting quite excited about it now, it’s a classic in the making, hopefully we can be third time lucky against Scolari. Although we are really gonna have to ratch up our game to another level from now on, after looking decidedly ordinary through the group and against Ecuador. But we still believe ! COME ON ENGLAND !

Brasil against France is the other game, pretty interesting as well, will the yellow and green will come through that one and send Zidane home for the last time?

Will try and post again on Sunday, and hopefully get some photos on at the same time !

COME ON ENGLAND !