(Ghana vs Italy)
After a depressing array of uncompetitive games on Sunday – not even Angola against Portugal, colony against coloniser, breathed life into the tournament - I hoped for better upon returning to Berlin. On the way up we stopped at Stuttgart. Walking up the street that runs from the station was necessary preparation for the football craze that was so absent in Weimar and Balingen but which now awaited me in Berlin. National shirts of all sorts littered the street. Everything was shaped like a football, even a rare hedge. There was a crippled man juggling a ball with his head, neck and to substitute his feet, a pair of crutches.
On the train Australia against Japan found its way into the mundane announcements of the train conductor. Mexicans boarded the train half way up Germany, where they had been studying their teams’ training in an admirable display of dedication to the national team. One group consisted of eight Mexicans, a family of all ages, led unsurprisingly by the only one wearing a carriage-consuming hat. Further along the train I came across another Mexican with an even bigger hat. Like the dedication of Dutch fans can be measured by the dazzle of their orange shirts, so Mexicans seem to compete according to the size of their hats. In the row in front of me, they talked happily with two elderly German women, an enjoyable scene that the World Cup was providing. In the evening I went to the Kulturforum to watch Ghana against Italy. It was a serene outdoor setting in central Berlin – a huge screen balanced on slightly sloping ground. Some sat on the floor while others leaned back on deckchairs. It lacked however the intensity of a swelling bar or an overcrowded platz.
The African teams offer a potentially colourful atmosphere in the promise of an upset. The exception is Tunisia, who is rather unfortunately discarded by fans as a nation not representing the true character of Africa and a team who are a burden to the competition. Maybe Tunisia is too far north, too close to Europe. The valiant performance of Jaidi, a Tunisian centre-back, in the 3-1 defeat by Spain hopefully convinced some fans to abandon this prejudice.
I sat next to an unresponsive Ghanaian who lives in Berlin. He did at least offer me a take on Italy: “the Vatican, the Mafia and Corruption.” However in Italy such cattiveria is regarded as an essential asset to a football team and so it proved here, Italy winning 2-0. This ruined the subsequent African-style concert that was intended to celebrate a Ghanaian upset. Perhaps this set the tone for the Kulturforum, for eventually it was forced to cancel all of its concerts as spectators dwindled.
(Croatia vs Brazil)
Tuesday was my first full World Cup day in Berlin. The group stages offered three games a day. I wanted to watch each game in a new venue, and was thus propelled into three entirely different scenarios in the space of eight hours. I only had one hour in between matches to find my new watch-spot. Today, in particular, the intensity of the arenas seemed to increase. It felt as if I was doing a lot more than travelling around Berlin. In the afternoon South Korea against Togo at the Ethnological Museum in West Berlin. Along with Trinidad & Tobago, Togo are Africa’s most unlikely team. Formerly well placed in the city, the museum was marginalized by the fall of the wall in 1989. Now it lies in an anonymous student area. It was disappointing inside. A handful of spectators, a bizarre half-time presentation by four Africans who provided an obscure analysis on the game, and an inevitable recovery by South Korea to win the game 2-1.
I turned up late for Switzerland against France at the Swiss Nola Restaurant. It has tables inside and outside. Between Swiss enthusiasts I was squeezed on the margins of in and out, always undecided about which screen to watch, and for how long I could stand the sun in my eyes, or the stalemate football that stung just as much. It was a true 0-0. At least the restaurant was bulging.
This was only an introduction to some Croatian intimacy later that night. The Columbia Halle to the south of the city was drawing Croatians for the match against Brazil. Several thousands of them. Exiting the U-Bahn I was very lucky to meet perhaps the most accessible Croat of the thousands. He had a very kind face, unlike many of the hardened looks of the other fans, many of whom might have been Baltic pirates who had only sought land for the World Cup. My friend had flown to Berlin with three of his companions for this one, a very special game. Of the three he was the only one who was without a ticket for the city’s Olympic Stadium. This left him rather sorrowful, and happy that someone, me, had rapidly sought his company. Though perhaps not as happy as I. A swarm of Croatians going to watch their football team, every single one clad in red and white chequers, are not bent to receiving an outsider. But I had found the only one who was. He was as unlikely to me as I was to him. Row after row of Croats were seated as we entered from the front of the square. We shuffled past the fans which blocked the aisles, and joined the standing section at the back, just in front of a pond. Only now could we see the screen erected on the stage thirty metres in front of us. This of course was no theatre. I asked my friend to translate the Croatian chants that were heaving from the red and white huddle. His face was utter bafflement. Never had he thought he would have to translate such things into English. All he could do was offer me something about Croatian heart and its regional divisions. The game was bad. My clearest memory is of the deep and scratched voice of the commentator live on Croatian TV. Brazil went one-up just before half time and the score never looked like changing. Fifteen minutes left and the fans were unsure as to what could hold the feverish mood. Then Croatian TV showed its fans singing wildly in the Olympic Stadium and setting off sparking red lights. Everything changed at the Columbia Halle. Starved of a Croatian goal, the fans had found their source of inspiration. Chants boomed as before and a red light was lit in reply to the one we had witnessed on the screen. The final whistle was barely noticed, and the fans hung around in the square to celebrate.
Every night of the World Cup parts of Berlin would be subjected to the ceremony of beeping cars. Germany’s triumphs meant uninterrupted hooting for hours. Tonight it should have been the Brazilians. But every time I looked up at the beeping cars I saw red and white chequered flags. Defeat had never been so glorious.
(Spain vs Ukraine)
The World Cup watch-spots were often memorable for their sheer ghastliness. On a very hot Wednesday afternoon I went to Potsdamer Platz, the sky scraping capital of Berlin, for Spain against the Ukraine. Here next to the Kulturforum was a very bizarre mini-circus arena posing as a World Cup cinema. It had a Russian feel to it. Inside the dark arena I found a Ukrainian family who were positioned so as to give the divine yet short-tempered son, a young man with a twisted cap, the centre. All were focused however on the projector screen ahead. I sat nearby, always distracted by the seemingly evolving physical scenario around me. Were the strange pictures of pale female faces really there when I first entered? And in any case, had they always had such an evil grin? Why was there a man sitting all alone right in the corner of this…place? What was I doing in a dark circus in mid afternoon? 2-0 at half time to Spain, and the referee ruined the match at the start of the second half by wrongfully sending off a Ukrainian and awarding Spain a penalty. The son got angry, the place became depressed, and the pale faces kept grinning. I left thirty minutes before the end.
