yesterday's uefa champion's league final had all the drama, heartache, and joy we've come to love in the world of soccer - a fierce 1-1 tie, double overtime, penalty kicks, rain, sweat, blood, and tears. even if chelsea weren't my team, my heart would have gone out to john terry in the end - his obvious despair at the end of the game would only have left the staunchest man u fan unmoved.
i never was a huge fan of any sport until i experienced all that soccer could be while living in europe. there is such a pure love of the game there, this worldwide phenomenon which brings people together all over the globe (and, like everything that brings people together all over the globe, leaves this isolated little island of ours called america untouched). it takes me back to the first time i really experienced soccer, during the 2004 european cup in portugal.
i had no idea it was coming, and it was only when they started setting up a large screen in one corner of the grassy courtyard of our "mensa" (dining hall), that curiosity set in. i had watched a funny little thing called the "eurovision song contest" earlier that semester, also in the marstall mensa, and it was my first experience of those funny little cultural things that bring europe together, and the complex dynamics of even something so innocent as a song contest (for those of you who don't know what it is, the eurovision song contest is a contest of european nations - which for some reason includes israel and turkey - in which each country picks a song to represent it in the the contest. after that, representatives from each country take turns rating and giving their vote to songs from other countries. politics are abound, and you see the relationships between the countries come forth - as when germany and turkey both gave each other their highest marks, and israel gave germany its lowest marks, etc.).
the mensa was packed that night - it was the first girl's night at my apartment, and after a round of food and chatter, we picked up and walked to the mensa to see the contest. there was hardly any sitting room, and we all ended up piling onto the curved staircase and making fun of the whole thing (and afterwards, spent a memorable night walking around the town until 5 in the morning, when we watched the sun rise over the alte bruecke).
but if we thought it was packed then, the "europameisterschaft" was 10 times worse. the day of the first german match (germany vs. holland, i think), the grassy courtyard was overflowing with people and flags and funny hats. we could barely see the screen, and as we didn't have the advantage of sitting on someone's shoulders for a better view (as some people did), we went into the dining hall itself (which was empty) and sat up on the second floor, watching the action on the screen outside through the tall, floor to ceiling windows, eating our strawberries with nutella, and arguing over the match (christina and i, the americans, sided with germany, while flo, the german, sided with holland).
because heidelberg has the most international students in germany (it is the epitome of an international city, especially with the american army base nearby), there was always someone rooting for the other team. two matches on one day, i think it was portugal vs. england at one end, and italy vs. bulgaria at the other (or something - my memory fails me), all aiming for the quarter finals, were memorable not only for the penalty shot that beckham missed, but for the flag-draped portugese students who celebrated afterwards by dancing in the courtyard and singing nelly furtado's "forca."
now, 4 years on, the european cup is back again. matches start june 7th, and though i'll miss being physically in europe for it, the passion for soccer which germany instilled in me will just have to carry over here.
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