We lost. After beating Turkey, Portugal and Poland we (and by "we" I mean, Germans, which means the people I live near but don't really talk to) lost the Euro 2008 to Spain.
Boring 'ol Spain.
Que triste. Maybe if this was 1492 or 1936, I'd be thinking "whoa, Spain, watch out," but instead I was snoozing. The game was neither political nor all that tense and I wish Schweinsteiger or Podolski had saved some of their sparkle for the later games. Oh well.
We watched the last two games of the tournament underneath a bridge on the Main. A beer garden with a white screen, benches, and a drinks hut was set up over abandoned train tracks. It was a great public viewing crowd: not too rowdy but ready to cheer at appropriate times. For both Wednesday's game and tonight's game the weather was a perfect 80 degrees and sunny, and looking out onto the river I felt so lucky to be able to live in a country with open bottle laws.
So no more soccer. This will be a big hole in my life. For the last three weeks there was always something to talk to strangers about, something to watch on TV, something to drink to. Sports are the great equalizers, the great national conversations. Tonight, Frau Merkel, or as I call her, Angie, was cheering in the stadium in Vienna, surely not more than 50 yards away from someone with their chest in grease paint and a German flag-colored afro. Soccer is enjoyed by both presidents and plebeians.
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