Strangers United

My hope was to stumble upon a bar or restaurant consumed with whatever World Cup match was being televised at the moment. Although I didn’t expect this to be too much of a problem, considering where we're currently staying, Duisburg, is not a World Cup host city and Sunday evening’s last match pitted Portugal against Angola, I wasn’t promising myself tons of people.
Much to my delight, after a brief stroll through the city center, my friend and I heard the faint sounds of German commentators in the background and followed the voices. A few minutes later, we discovered an outdoor cafe with the match being shown in high definition on a flat screen.
We showed up about 15 minutes in – missing the lone goal in Portugal’s 1-0 win – and were part of a group that contained at least 30 people and sometimes more over the match’s duration. From what I saw, no one was wearing an Agola or Portugal shirt – jerseys from a few other competing European nations were sprinkled in the crowd – yet everyone was consumed by each play, reacting in unison to the happenings as if we were all there.
Aside from the group actually sitting, eating and watching, pedestrians walking through would often stop by – men and women – to check the score, watch a few seconds and continue on their way. The setting was also appropriate since the cafe had flags from many of the tournament's countries flying off its roof.
In terms of what I’d hope to experience during this trip, obviously seeing a World Cup match in person and traveling to new countries was high on that list. But sitting with strangers and sharing the same moment by simply watching a soccer match was up there as well. There figure to be more opportunities like Sunday night’s, and the big one to look forward to is in about a week when I will be in Berlin on a night Germany is playing in the nation’s capitol. Every World Cup host city provides free telecasts on big screen TVs outside the stadium and that scene is supposed to be as crazy as the regular crowd.
It’s roughly 10:45 a.m. local time here, and I can’t believe I’m up, but I have good reason to be. My friend and I are going to stop by a sporting goods store in town and try to pick up two jerseys for today’s match – we have other memorabilia if necessary – before jumping on a very early train to Gelsenkirchen for tonight's 6 o'clock start. Sam’s Army – a contingent of American supports from nationwide – is hosting a red, white and brew party before and after the U.S.-Czech match, meaning win or lose, today figures to produce plenty of strories