Back In Action

After an extended stretch of much-needed sleep, I awoke late this morning in time to catch the end of Germany’s round of 16 win against Sweden. With the support they’re receiving and their ability to score early goals so often, the Germans are looking more and more like a dangerous team.
Now that I’ve finally regained some sense of normalcy after all the travel, it’s time to recap the ending moments of my trip and give some final thoughts. Each section will be broken up with a word or two in all caps.

THE MATCH
Of course, like any American fan, I would have preferred to see the U.S. beat Ghana on Thursday and advance to the second round. And even though I left the stadium in Nuremberg filled with disappointment, the experience was still worth having.
The celebration that took place after the U.S. tied the score at 1 is probably the greatest moment of its kind I’ve ever been a part of at any sporting event. We screamed and cheered in the stands for a good three minutes. Among the people I celebrated with were two guys from California we’d met in Prague. They were seated a few seats over in the adjacent section and when the goal went in they ran into our section and hugged my friend and I, who were waiting for their arrival.
Of course, myself along with the other few thousand of Americans seated behind the goal had little time to revisit that ecstatic moment since Ghana was awarded a penalty kick just before the half, which ended up serving as the winning goal.
The result was more difficult to handle in some ways because we ended up getting the necessary help with Italy beating the Czech Republic. All along I was saying that I trusted Italy to do its part more than us, and I ended up forecasting that unfortunate scenario. In some ways, I think a U.S. win over Ghana without the correct help to go through would have been easier to handle, but that’s easy to say knowing the end result now.
The fond memories I will take from the loss were how, once again, the Americans came out in full force to support their country. Patriotism was fully alive throughout my trip to Germany, and now the challenge will be for Americans to remain interested in soccer year round and not just every four years for the World Cup.

SCALPING
I still can’t get over how prevalent ticket scalping was during the World Cup. I know those type of sales exist at every major sporting event, but FIFA had spent months harping on the fact that no one could get into the stadium with a ticket not matching their name. That plan clearly failed.
Too many people I met said how they’d bought tickets for matches only a few hours before kickoff. If you were willing to pay three or four times face value — some matches drew less interest — it was not difficult to secure a last-minute seat.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have believed FIFA’s overzealous thoughts that scalping could be avoided, but I wish soccer’s governing body wouldn’t have made such a big deal over ticket security when I never saw a single document checked. As long as your ticket passed as real when placed though the scanning machine, you were good to go.
The security to enter the stadiums was also pretty light. I think I was checked more strictly before entering the Berlin Fan Fest than for either of the two U.S. matches I attended.
Speaking of the Fan Fest, in addition to the 500,000 people filling the streets of Germany’s capital, I forgot to mention the other great options for fans without tickets to matches. Just outside the Berlin train station was a smaller replica of the stadium on the other side of town. It held roughly 9,000 people and for a few Euros you could sit in there and watch matches on one of the many big screens inside. Definitely one of the cooler ideas I’ve seen.

WITH OPEN ARMS
Not once can I recall having any problems with the people of Germany during my stay. Everyone made the experience of being in a foreign land easy, and from what some citizens told me, that was the hope.
Fair or not, there are still plenty of people out there who only see Germany as the land of the Nazis. As someone who is Jewish, if I can separate those two thoughts, than I believe most others should be capable of the same.
Even though its been roughly half a century, a lot of Germans I met talked about how this World Cup was another way to show the world how far their country has come. Hopefully, after people leave with positive experiences, the memories of trouble a few generations ago will not continue to feel like a burden to the current generations.

That’s a wrap for now. I’ll continue to share my thoughts on the round of 16 and beyond, with this blog staying on until the World Cup Final on July 9.