Before I continue with more parts of Germany (and other places), I have to take a moment to talk about the phenomenon of football. Being from North America, “football” usually brings up memories of epic Monday Night Football music, a brown “pigskin” oblong ball, and college. Everywhere else in the world, “football” = PARTY TIME/NATIONALISM!
Not really for Germans, though. They only just started to raise their flags for their national team as of when they hosted the World Cup in Germany a couple years ago. Raising the flag and cheering for a country is a new (and still widely debated) occurrence. When asking an American if their proud of being American, most will say yes (politics aside.. just the basic principles of being American). Ask a German and they’ll just ask “why?” It’s not that they don’t love their country or are happy to be there, it’s just that why should one be proud of his country? It’s a piece of land! Pride is a sinful state of being! “German” is not an identity, it’s who you are as an individual. I can respect that… it’s just weird for me to comprehend because as an American where you come from is just as much a part of your individual identity as everything else. Like when an American asks another American what they are, he/she will talk about their ancestry (for example, I would say German, Italian, Bulgarian. Not American. Even though, ultimately I am just an American). That confuses Europeans so much!
In any case, most places in the EU (or around the world, for that matter) love football and are so passionate about their country winning that they go nuts. Here you can see the German Polizei ready to jump into action should a riot break out in the public viewing area. This was during the semi-final between Turkey and Germany. Turkey is the largest minority group in Germany by a long shot and they tend to be pretty rowdy. This was proven to me by when I was in Turkey a few days before to witness Turkey beat the Czech Republic:
They were ridiculous. The entire city of Istanbul was honking, screaming, and waving flags. It was utter chaos! Germans make it much more organized by all parading to and congregating on one particular street to raise flags and cheer:
In any case, it was darn fun to be there for the semi-final victory. After beating Turkey they went on to the final game, where they beaten to a pulp by Spain. Still, not bad considering the fact that Germany was basically pegged to lose in the first round!
Although there is a heavy degree of rivalry in Football matches, there is some love shared despite the national intensity. There is lots of crying if your team loses, and there are lots of IN YOUR FACEs when your team wins, but football can’t stand in between true friendship (awww).
These two were each yelling passionately about their individual teams— starting chants, jumping up and down, etc. They would start to scuffle, as if they were going to start a full out fight, but then they’d break out laughing and hug each other. It was cute.
Anyway, I can now say that I was in Germany when they hit the Eurocup finals (even if they only got 2nd place) and I myself managed to get all decked out in Deutschland swag:
