Soccer Game Loss; A Nation Mourns

There is little joy in the streets of Germany today. The German national Fußball (soccer) team lost last night in the semifinals (think Final Four) of the World Cup last night, and from the dour atmosphere permeating everything, you'd think somebody died.

I've touched upon the level of fanaticism that soccer fans have here in Europe, but until you see and experience it firsthand, it's really hard to describe-- maybe NYC and Philadelphia sports superfan level, but even that falls far short of the mark. Simply put, soccer is not a sport but a way of life-- you live and die with your team, and the level of national support for this German squad has been nothing but astonishing to my outsider eyes-- you almost never see German flags on display (or really any overt show of patriotism), but now almost every car has one (sometimes 2-3) on the antenna or window-- all to identify with the soccer team. Imagine everybody treating each World Cup game like the Superbowl, and you're getting closer. At any rate, the German team who were simply steamrolling through the tourney were schooled by Spain and lost 1-0. The best the Germans, known as Die Mannschaft (The Crew) can do now is win the 3rd place game against a surprising Uruguay squad. Germany has an excellent tradition in the World Cup soccer tournament: In the course of 19 tournaments (held every 4 years) Germany have been in the final four on 12 occasions, including 3 championships. They were hoping that this year would be their 4th, but it was not to be. The 3rd place game happens on Saturday; the World Cup Championship (Spain vs Netherlands) happens on Sunday.

On the wacky side of the news, Germany's own Paul the psychic octopus has kept his perfect prediction record intact, and has done better than the high-paid analysts on TV.