Let me preface this by saying that I am going to set forth my thoughts on soccer, as a game, separately. I have now watched much more of it than I ever really wanted to and have some useless thoughts and suggestions of which I have no doubt will be consumed greedily by FIFA in its effort to make the game better. Thus, this will (mostly) be confined to the first-hand experience of this game in particular.
But first, we last left Schnitzel Boy (Terry, who has never seen a form of breaded pork he doesn´t like), Heidi (Monica, who took to wearing her hair in braided pigtails out of a deep respect for the movie that famously interrupted the TV broadcast of a Raiders´ comeback in 1968 - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game ), Doner Boy (Mike, who ate Doner Kebab four times in six days), and Cup Boy (me, so named because I made 10 Euros picking up empty cups after the first U.S. game) in Stuttgart.
Thursday (June 15), they made the short drive from Stuttgart to Heidelberg. Cup Boy had been here before in 1988 with Rob Cohen, but barely remembered anything other than it sits on a river, with a castle, a famous university, and the ubiquitous beer culture. 18 years later, he now knows it sits on the Neckar, has a really bitchin´ castle ruin, a famous university, the ubiquitous beer culture, and a lot of tourists shopping in tourist shops. We walked around, took, pictures, ate meat, drank beer, watched the World Cup games, and headed back to our hotel rather surprised at how few Amercians we noticed, given that it is the closest tourist city to Kaiserslautern.
On Friday, we moved to Speyer, a pretty Medieval city on the Rhein most famous for a very old cathedral and its dome. That took 15 minutes. We ate meat, we drank (although we also tried the local Rhein wines, which were actually quite good for costing about $9 a bottle at a restaurant. We tried a couple of bars, but, again, didn´t find a real World Cup vibe. Again, this surprised Cup Boy because he had been unable to find reasonably priced accommodation in Kaiserslautern or the center of Heidelberg, and Speyer was actually closer to K-Town (there is a large U.S. military base there, and we so hip) than Heidelberg or Mannheim. All that would change, soon, though.
The game was at 9:00 p.m. local time on Saturday. We got on the 2:30 train to K-Townm, requiring one transfer at Schifferstadt to a train coming from Heidelberg/Mannheim. It was already packed with a mixture of U.S., Italian, and German fans. There was the requisite singing, chanting, whistling (Doner Boy said he thought seriously about causing the guy with the whistle to have to digest it) and sweating, particularly since we made a few more stops to squeeze in more fans.
Kaiserslautern, however, was the opposite of everything we had seen so far. The fan fests were packed. The main pedestrian street was body-to-body for 10 blocks or more, with tents, beergardens, vendors, and installations competing with the crowd. It was basically a really, really big street party. There was no physical way all these people were going to the game. The stadium only held 48,000 people, and the streets of K-Town were brimming with way more than that. As proof, there were many more people (mostly Italian) holding up signs looking for tickets than we did at Gelsenkirchen, and the going price was in excess of 400€ ($510).
And the people - this was what I expected. People with flags, temporary tattoos (Cup Boy got the American flag on his face), goofy costumes, and coordinated outfits - a real Bay to Breakers type turnout. There were a surprising number of Germans for a non-German game and our best guess was that it was because it was a Saturday night game and it was just a good excuse to dress up, go to a street party, eat street food, drink beer, sing, dance and co-mingle. There was also a smattering of people in Brazilian, Swedish, and Australian gear. Again, I found everyone was in a jolly mood and we saw no animosity, only good-natured ribbing, such as the American who fell down in the middle of the mini-mart after the game screaming and holding his ankle. I also read that some fans sang "We are the only superpower" to the tune of some song I didn´t know.
We left the city center about two hours before the game for what promised to be a bit of a slog uphill to the stadium because each ticket had to enter the entrance with which it was affiliated (allegedly to separate fans, but that was far from possible since almost no one we met had got their tickets through official methods) and ours was the furthest. Security wasn´t bad and we got there about an hour before the game - this was for Doner Boy´s happiness because he wanted to see warmups, introductions, etc. and experience multiple World Cup experience orgasms in case he cannot get to South Africa in 2010. The upside was the Powers That Be allowed Cup and Schnitzel Boy to get four beers each, instead of the three allowed at Gelsenkirchen, although the lines were just as long.
Our section filled in, overwhelming U.S. fans, and I would say that the neutrals were pro-U.S. also, which surprised me, until Doner Boy told me that the Italians are almost universally despised for being divers and cheats. My response to that is "it works, and the sport obviously allows it, so how can you blame them?" (but more on that later). The fans cheered, booed, inhaled, gesticulated, exhorted, cursed, and waved their flags early and often; however, we still only have one chant. Unsurprisingly, everyone thought the ref sucked, although I am befuddled as to how fans think they can see whether a foot clips the ball or the leg from where we sat (see pictures). On the other hand, the game encourages bad calls because there is no way that one referee can be in position to see everything that happens and the rules are so subjective (but more on that later). As for certain calls, such as the red card on Pope, um, I was getting beer or in the bathroom or something. I admit to reaching my frustration point with a so-called "sport" that appears to be ballet, but with worse acting. Hours of boredom, interspersed with seconds of exultation, marred by a feeling that no sport can be this important, and, if it is, why is it apparently run by Vince McMahon.
After kissing our Italian sister, we wandered out and to a local bar for a couple more beers, and to share our outrage and regret with Italian and American fans, and we caught what we were told was the third to last train out of K-Town. It may well have been, but we (and a bunch of other people) missed the last connecting train to Shifferstadt. (Again, anyone who tells you this World Cup was run with German efficiency either lies or has a low opinion of German efficiency.) It was too far to walk, and the few cabs that came were grabbed by people before us. (Why the word didn´t go out to every other local cab that their were fares galore available at 2:30 a.m. is also beyond my apparently limited ken). So, we had no choice but to kill time at the bar until the first train at 4:10 a.m.
Sunday the 18th was a brutally early wake-up to get Heidi and Schnitzel Boy to the Frankfurt airport by noon, but my flight didn´t leave until 04:15 a.m. on the 19th, so I spent 12 hours or so in Heidelberg bumming around, reading and finding a place to watch the final round of the U.S. Open golf (the sports bar at the Marriott agreed to put it on one of their 28 TVs for me and another guy - take that FIFA!), and went to the airport to catch my flight to Spain without sleeping. Blessedly, I am spending seven nights in my next stop, so I have some time to recover, detox, and recharge for the festivals to come.
Moving On - Alicante, Spain (the Hogueras de San Juan)
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