Blythe Spirit

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The World Cup is over. The Italians are still driving around honking their horns and waving Camoranesi’s sheared-off ponytail. The world is trying to read Zidane’s mind and Materazzi’s lips (except in my home country where people think Zizou is one of the Gabor sisters). Juergen Klinsmann, the German coach, is sleeping late before he considers the irony that the German citizenry is ready to erect a Rocky-type statue in his honor.

I was pulling for France, so I was disappointed, though fascinated, by the final result. For me, the story of the weekend was Germany’s classy display of passion in the third-place match. They played their best in a tribute to the new spirit of Deutsch pride. Oliver Kahn kind of scares me, but I guess that’s how you can tell I’m not German.

Update: For more about Zizou, Materazzi, and who said what, Kottke is keeping tabs on the latest developments.

Patriotic

Today is the day when all Americans wear red, white, and blue, sing the national anthem, parade down Main Street in a marching band, eat hot dogs, and sit around thinking about how nice it is to be able to shop on Sundays and enjoy air conditioning. Or, if I were in the States right now, that’s what I would be doing (well, maybe except the marching band part). Patriotism is a sentiment we take for granted; one that swelled strong after 9/11/01, and which, though sometimes controversial, is part of American culture. Those crazies we saw at the World Cup match who dressed up like Uncle Sam didn’t think twice about donning their proud-to-be-an-American attitudes and displaying them far and wide.

To Germans, patriotism is a much more nuanced and complicated concept. They’ve seen just how patriotism can seep into nationalism, which can lead to destructive group think and terrible consequences. Many of the Germans I’ve met feel conflicted about displaying national pride. Some feel that their country still has too much to answer for. Others believe that waving the flag too enthusiastically might remind the world of a difficult past. There are those who refuse to sing the national anthem, because of how its first verses (they sing only the third verse now) were once used to rally the crowds. Some of them just think that screaming and shouting about how great life is in your home country is kind of tacky.

The World Cup seems to have inspired a groundswell of German enthusiasm that, according to friends who have lived here much longer than I have, hasn’t been seen here in years. Tonight, the German football team will play in the World Cup semifinal match, and I would be surprised to hear that less than 80% of this country’s citizens will be watching. Today, there are German flags hanging from every apartment building, flying from car windows and out sun roofs, and painted on children’s faces. The flagmakers are running out of inventory, and the sense of excitement is palpable.

I’ve never been a big sports enthusiast, as a player or a spectator, but I have to admit that football has had a healing effect around here. Win or lose, Ballack and company have helped to lighten the burden of history just a little. Now, if we could just tone down those Uncle Sams a hair, maybe everyone will have learned something.

Guest post: Jeff breaks down USA vs. Italy

All right, I am going to temporarily take over ‘The Blythe Spirit’ with a little soccer info….it was terrific to be at the WC. The game itself was a bit ugly but the result was important for the U.S. and the atmosphere was terrific. It was an emotional roller coaster for both U.S. and Italians, goal, own goal, goal disallowed (Italy), red card, red card, red card, goal disallowed (U.S.)…very exciting.

I have to say I have always thought Claudio Reyna was the best all-around player on the team but in the back of my mind always wondered a little if there was truth in “he stifles the team” theory. Having seen the game in person, I can safely say Reyna was the only player who had the quality to be on the pitch with Italy for 90 minutes. Other players had their moments, but Reyna does play at a level much closer to the best Europeans. Donovan was so over-matched it was not even funny. I am afraid people might say he had a good match because he made a couple of direct runs at the Italians and set up McBride, but other than that, his possession and defense (esp when the U.S. went down to 8 men) sucked. With all that said, the U.S. makes up for their lack of creativity (and talent if truth be told) with hard work and tenacity and on that front they taught the Italians a thing or two. McBride worked hard as usual but in the second half he had no one to hold the ball up for, should have been substituted for EJ. The ref did ruin the game and I did not see him once seriously warn the Italians about diving, but at the same time (in seeing the replays on TV) he was right on with the de Rossi red card, the red for Pablo (although could have been a yellow), the two yellows (red) for Eddie P and the offsides call on the U.S. goal. As for the U.S. cards, when you are up a man against a world power, you can’t give the ref any excuses to even things up, the U.S. needed to be more disciplined. Lastly (for now until I need to vent some more) I have to question Bruce’s subs, why not use all three, why not bring McBride off in the last 20 minutes and go with defense or bring fresh legs on in EJ or even Ching, and lastly Donovan should have come off (for the reasons mentioned above).

More venting……
One additional point – OFFSIDES – we had 0 against Czech and 1 against Italy (ironically disallowing Beasley’s goal). Obviously the lack of goals and lack of shots on target show the ineptitude of our offense, but our lack of offsides I think is even more representative. This is not the result of the superior timing of U.S. runs but instead the result of a lack of U.S. runs. I realize the offense is predicated more on possession, pushing it wide and service into McBride and less on
through balls, but I think I would rather have more “going forward” and 6-7 offsides a game than our inability to even challenge our opponents back line. Eurosport.com has interesting and detailed data on each player’s performance for each game. Don’t know how accurate it is but, as I suspected it seems to me CR did about twice as much work as LD.

With all that said, the U.S. still has life…as Blythe said, we now have to root the U.S. on to victory on Thursday right here in Nurnberg and then (despite any comments I made on Saturday) we are now big fans of Italy as long as they beat the Czech Republic (if not, we are back to hating them). Viva la Copa Mundial!

P.S.
I want to share a few songs sung during and after the game. If you are familiar with soccer songs, these aren’t new but they are still amusing. It is hard to convey the right feeling with just the lyrics as so much comes from the way they are sung but
you will get the idea…

(sung to the tune of “She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain”)
You can buy a referee in Italeeeeee,
You can buy a referee in Italeeeeee,
You can buy a referee, you buy a referee, you can buy a referee in Italeeeeeeeee.

The next one is amusing because it was being chanted by drunk English fans, who will take any opportunity to take a shot at other European rivals; also because the Italian soccer world has been consumed by scandal in the last several months (even more than usual) with allegations of players gambling, teams wiretapping
phones, and club officials ‘arranging’ referee selections for games.

Just like I – TIE, always cheating, (I – TIE, English fan colloquillism for Italian footballers)
Just like I – TIE, always cheating

Go USA

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Please excuse The Blythe Spirit’s temporary identity crisis. It’s starting to look like a football blog, but that’s not a permanent condition. I promise a return to regular programming soon. But this World Cup stuff is just too much fun to ignore.

Jeff and I were in the stands during the USA vs. Italy match on Saturday evening. It was an exciting night, not least because Jeff has been a football fan since he was a little kid, and has watched this event on TV for years and years. It was a thrill for him to be there, and a thrill for me to experience it with him. I’ve asked him to write a rundown of the match; I’ll post it when it’s ready. Today, I’ll share my impressions of everything outside the competition, since my football expertise only recently came to include an understanding of the difference between a yellow card and a red card (crucial intelligence in Saturday’s match).

We arrived wearing our red, white and blue two hours before the scheduled start time, and the stadium was packed. Blue jerseys from Italy dotted the stands, along with plenty of stars and stripes sprinkled among them. We sat in a section populated by both Italians and Americans, all of whom were friendly and completely engrossed in the match. See the photos for a visual sample of 46,000 screaming football fans. I thought Jeff might need a tranquilizer by the end of the game, which finally closed in a 1-1 tie and included several tense calls. But I’ll let him fill you in on those details later. I was squished next to April Heinrichs, former USA women’s coach, in the park-n-ride shuttle after the match. We (accidentally) followed the USA team bus, along with its giant security escort, down the Autobahn on the way back to our hotel. And now we’re looking forward to Thursday’s Ghana vs. USA contest with more anticipation than we’d expected to have. Cross your fingers and look for us in the stands (and say a little prayer that Italy beats Czech Republic too).

You’ll never walk alone

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We couldn’t resist the pull of English energy coming from downtown Nurnberg yesterday, so we ventured to the heart of the city to watch England play Trinidad & Tobago. According to TV commentators, 70,000 English converged on the city yesterday. Most of them didn’t hold tickets to the match, so they watched on outdoor TV screens in various gathering places. We found a spot at a bar where a group of blokes from Lancashire had planted themselves for the afternoon. They were spending their nights in the Czech Republic, stocking up on cheap Czech beverages(their ringleader carried a gym bag that contained one clean shirt, a can of deodorant, and an endless supply of beer), and riding the trains at least five hours each way to watch the England matches in host cities.

There’s a reason that English football fans are revered and feared throughout Europe. Sometimes their enthusiasm gets the best of them, and then tend toward the destructive. But we saw simply infectious joy, gallons of face paint, and a few more bare chests than we’d bargained for. The match was a nailbiter, with England, heavy favorites, finally pulling out a win in the last few minutes.

Let’s go England!

Are you ready for some football?

In case you (like the American Forces Network reporter I heard on the radio yesterday, who told the soccer commentator that most Americans wouldn’t really understand what he was talking about) hadn’t noticed, Germany is currently hosting the biggest international sporting event in the world. That means our city buses are flying Deutsch flags, every town square in the country is full of picnic tables, beer steins and huge TV screens, and the English are having a hard time crossing the borders. In other words, not much different that normal. Ba-dum-bum.

My new favorite team, Trinidad & Tobago, held Sweden to a tie, and they’re set to play England here in Nurnberg tomorrow. I saw a bunch of England fans walking around downtown this morning and they were all very well-behaved though we will probably stay out of the pubs for the next 48 hours as a precaution. My ancestors, the Croatians, lost to Brazil yesterday, though they fought hard and played well. I was comforted that Brazil’s only goal was scored by the adorable Kaka, who makes up for his ludicrous name with dashing good looks. The USA is poised for its expected early exit thanks to a sad match on Monday evening. I noticed that, midway through the second half, Jeff had flipped the channel and was watching a “Friends” rerun. He said it was just too frustrating to keep watching the game. This despite frequent camera shots of female fans clad in stars-and-strips bikinis. I’m so proud to be an American. But, as the Germans would say, at least I’m not Dutch.

Excuses, excuses

I resolve to try to curb my sporadic posting habits of the last couple of weeks. I do have a few excuses:
-Visit from one adorable niece, accompanied by her two minions/parents. They were on their way home to France from a jaunt to Hungary and we enjoyed our week playing with them, despite weather that reminded us of our days in the Pacific Northwest.
-Visit from Scott and Kerri and subsequent sightseeing, sausage-eating, and general merriment.
-Beginning of a certain major worldwide sporting event that everyone in the world is watching. Except in the USA because sports like American football and baseball are so much more exciting. Um, right.

Jeff scored World Cup tickets through tenacious participation in two different lotteries, so we will enthusiastically cheer on the USA next Saturday versus Italy and the following Thursday versus Ghana. Watch for us if you’ve got cable.

Fuβball spielen

Jeff asked me to alert you that the UEFA Champions League final will be played today – FC Barcelona versus Arsenal FC – and now that we live in a civilized country, he will be able to watch it from our couch instead of sneaking peeks online at the office. He also asked if I wanted to install a countdown to the World Cup ticker on my blog, but I tactfully declined.