Um.........
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.... there's a ton of things I want to put down.
First of all, non football-related items:
Saturday was nice and relaxing. France beat Brazil in a very confident manner. This turned the World Cup into the Cup of Europe. ^^
Sunday there were some bands playing at the Fan Fest site and I went with a couple of friends. The bands were mostly, um...... not our taste XD (and there were actually good bands playing at other World Cup cities! *GRRR*) but we still had a nice sunday. ^^
(Sneak) Eine fatale Entscheidung: *first falls a sleep and then pukes*
(Sneak) UltraViolet: I thought it was not as bad as everyone keeps saying, but it wasn't exactly ok either. *shrugs*
Main item: World Cup. Of course.
I don't know how to start. I don't want to sound as if I was grumpy or anything.
But this kind of amount of letting-yourself-fall-and-scream and fussing around and acting and bitchy (I'm sorry I have to say I feel that way) behaviour.... This is not fair. Neither is it acceptable. Which is my own personal opinion as a fan. Admittedly in this case I am a supporter of the opponent team but I hope someone believes me when I say that I try not to let that matter just for this moment here.
Apart from it being unfair, it's also no fun to watch. And I think there should be a rule against this kind of thing.
Watching the World Cup matches on tv, it is my impression that there *were* some very good Refs at this tournament who recognized and in some cases also rebuked this kind of behaviour.
Yesterday's Ref either didn't see it, in which case he at least wasn't as accurate/quick-eyed as some of his colleagues, or.... well.... I am sorry to say that the other option appears to be that he just wasn't very confident (read: good) in what he's doing.
I am *not* accusing anyone of being biased here, although the really very stupid part of my brain (???) would gladly do so. I am rejecting that. Also, I fully recognize how hard a job they're doing on the field. I wouldn't want to swap.
But still, I need to point out one simple example here:
An italian and a german player were heading towards the then-german end of the field. The ball went out, the Ref indicated that Lehmann had the kick. The italian player picked up the ball and refused to give it to the german player (who in his turn wanted to pass it to our goalie). In all other matches I have seen so far, players that have picked up or kicked away and in doing so kept the ball against a clear Ref's decision have instantly been given the Yellow Card.
Not yesterday. It took maybe 15 seconds until finally the italian player released the ball. The Ref did nothing.
I went very early again and got myself a good spot to watch the match. A lot of nice people around me and three people from India, who didn't have so much as a grain of dust's sense for melody or rhythm of the fan chants (who cares about the words anyway). XD
The couple of Italian fans who were there weren't bothered about the chants or some friendly teasing by German fans with pizza or spaghetti being thrown around. Nice atmosphere. ^^
They closed the Fan Fest again at a bit more than an hour before the kickoff, again at 70 000 people. With all the people around it counted in, it's agood guess that there were something around 100 000 people again.
When Italy scored their first goal, people were slightly taken aback but there were after all still about 5 minutes left to play, so everyone straightened up one last time to cheer our team to pull through and score and so get to the Penalty Shooting. With us trusting Lehmann 100% that he'd get us to win that again.
When Italy scored for the second time, everyone was taken into complete apathy. I watched it like you watch a nightmare, from somewhere far off, wishing to wake up. This cannot have happened right now, can it?
It was interesting to see what happened then. From the very second the ball landed in the net and the Italian fans were cheering and screaming and dancing it was as if you had pulled the plug from a full bathtub: everyone but the Italians turned around on their heels and headed for the stations. Quickly. In silence. Without any fuss being made. Many without even looking anywhere else but at their feet.
It was kind of spooky to see so many people (a hundred thousand, remember) doing that. I mean, even when there was no one playing at the moment, the place has been full of cheers and happy people, and even when the place was only half full you had a really hard time getting to places if on your way you had to go through the crowd. And now it was.... like I said, like you pulled the plug from a bathtub.
On tv you often see crying fans. There weren't many crying here. Just blank faces and silence.
And because almost no one was staying to celebrate the public trains were incredibly full. I stayed some ten minutes to watch all this but still when I arrived at the station it was crammed full.
Picture a full station with people standing around in apathy having blank faces and being completely silent. And now picture some three people or so somewhere on the opposite side starting a cheer for Germany - and everyone almost instantly joining in.
Surprisingly, the atmosphere inside the actual train I got on was quite good. We were so crammed in you almost couldn't breathe (and usually people tend to get agressive or panicky in situations like that). It was hot, stuffy, everyone was sweating like whoa, the doors weren't opening from the inside (some malfuntion, someone had to knock at the driver's dept so that he would open the door), we were still depressed from the match, some Italian fans' cars blocked a square the train had to pass and we had to wait a couple of minutes, all the time we heard Italians partying on the streets....
But we had fun. *smiles*
I painted "DANKE KLINSI" (="Thank You, Klinsmann") on a flag I took to the match and afterwards it was very moving to see depressed and sad people reading that and give a heartfelt smile.
Now we're singing
- 54, 74, 90, 2010......
- Stuttgart ist viel schöner als Berlin. (Stuttgart's much better than Berlin.)
- Wir sind nur ein Bockwurst/Weißbier Lieferant. (We're only good to make Suasages/Weißbier.)
and things like that.
Waking up today was like "......Oh bugger, can we please just go back to tuesday and have another go at it?......"
Well, the Italians were having a very beautiful and joyous party, of course. Today I went to pick up something from my fav italian restaurant (yes, I admit I wanted to see how they were doing and good food is always nice ^^) and the boys there were just one happy bunch of people. ^^
While on tv they said that today not many people in germany were eating or ordering or buying italian food, one of the guys at "my" place told me that he was surprised so many germans came today and congratulated them or wished them luck for sunday or simply wanted to talk about the match. ^-^ (Boo for stupid tv, btw.... :P )
I cannot and what's more don't want to feel grumpy, even though, as I said above, I didn't exactly enjoy the manner of playing of this match. This is over, let's move on.
On saturday the German Team will be playing their last World Cup match in my home town, which is a great thing. And I will most certainly be there again, to watch that together with a hundred thousand fellow fans, giving them a cheer that hopefully no one will ever forget.
leandralocke made three lovely Klinsi icons for me. =^-^=
A Gif I made: World Cup collage.
I took a couple of my fav World Cup photos and some of our team. It is much,much,much too large to use as an icon, but I still like it anyway. ^^
Pictures.
- Sunday: empty Fan Fest area from the inside. (Please note that it is actually much larger than it appears on these pictures.)
- Before the match, a couple of funny/interesting items.
- Before and during the match.
- After the match.
*hums "Stuttgart ist viel schöner als Berlin" and "You Never Walk Alone"*......
Yoo