...of which many of you may not be aware.
And I'm not talking Mr. Bu(ll)sh(it) breaking bread with slump-shouldered Angela Merkel.
Nor am I referencing the winner Heidi Klum and her teutonic panel picked as Germany's Next Top Model. (So much more, um, not black those aspiring fashionistas are than Tyra's hand-picked dozen.)
No, my friends, we are talking...
Fresh-laid grass. Yellow cards. Sweaty headbands. Calves as hard as bone.
Yesterday Turkey shot a winning goal against Switzerland in the game's final minutes, and Berlin erupted into the night. We could hear it all the way from Bayreuth Boy's balcony, rockets blasting the sky, air-pistols. On the Kudamm, Turkish youths swarmed the streets, rocking helpless cars back and forth.
C'mon, I said to the Boy. All they did was beat the Swiss.
Exactly! he said.
The Swiss are notoriously weak as players. They are also notoriously polite and reserved. They are so polite, in fact, they think Gemans are rude...and loud. Hello? If Germans are loud, then Americans are ten monster trucks revving. And Italians are a fifty-piece tuba band warming up alongside those engines.
Last night a Swiss and Turkish player collided, knocking each other onto the rain-logged field, a tangle of muddy limbs. The Swiss helped his rival to his feet, patting his arm kindly. The Turk scowled, wrenched himself free, and roared off toward the ball in play. Which might explain why who won won.
Every day I watch the games. Every day I tune into the post-game commentary. Every day I say things like: Ibramovich hasn't shot a goal in two whole years! And he's Europe's top-paid player.
Or: What an old-fashioned game the Greeks play. So eighties.
Or: Offsides! Offsides!
The Boy cannot believe it. I cannot really either.
Those of you who know me may also know this:
In my five years at CAL, I never once attended a football game. Not even as blue-gold pilgrims swarmed Berkeley's hills, stadium-bound, for the fight against Stanford, an annual battle of biblical proportions.
In my nine years in New York, I never once watched a baseball game. I do not know where Shea Stadium is. I didn't notice when the World Series turned Subway, New York teams head-to-head on the diamond.
I said things like: Oh, the Mets are from Brooklyn?
Also: Like I care.
Yet it took only a single game for me to become a full and irreversible Fussball fan.
The Italians loped across the field, tall and beautiful, their black curls damp, their olive limbs aglow. Their 2006 World Championship title lent a casual arrogance to their step, a tilt to their sharp chins. Then came the Dutch, decked in garish orange. Like pit bulls they came, blasting across the field, ramming the goal, relentless, unforgiving, from game's start to its end. Three fierce goals they scored to Italy's dazed one.
You had to love those little Dutch. And the fans! One had draped fat bundles of carrots over each ear. Another wore a huge Gouda cheese on his head. Atop the Gouda stood miniature replicas of Dutch national treasures, windmills included.
Still. I am wondering: Why? Me? Care?
Contributing factors are as follows:
