On The Spot


 
Follow PWC columnist Paul Marcuccitti's World Cup diary as he travels around Germany.

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Football colony



June 8th, 2006

    Cologne has become my base until Sunday when I move on to Frankfurt. The name Cologne (Köln in German) came from the Latin word colonia, which means colony.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that I’m here. I come from a colony.

    But crazily enough, I won’t be attending a World Cup match here. I’m going to Gelsenkirchen tomorrow for Poland v Ecuador and to Dortmund on Saturday for Trinidad & Tobago v Sweden. I couldn’t find hotel rooms in either Gelsenkirchen or Dortmund but Cologne isn’t far from either.

    I didn’t reach Cologne until early afternoon – the train ride from Ulm took four hours – so I spent just a few hours wandering around the city. Today, this colony is a football colony.

    It’s a big city and I have only really sampled it so far. I’ve already seen the famous cathedral. You can’t miss it if you get here by train because it is just outside the main station.

    Now this is one gigantic structure. Even with a clever digital camera, I couldn’t fit it all into one photograph. I didn’t go inside – that will have to wait for another day.

    But let’s get back to football because it’s everywhere. I talked about the World Cup fever that I experienced in Ulm but it’s much greater in Cologne. You’d expect that given that it’s one of the 12 lucky cities hosting matches.

    There is so much World Cup related merchandise in the shops and on the streets that I’ll actually be surprised if it all gets sold. But the sight of it all contributes to the atmosphere.

    The fans are contributing too and they’re already out in force. Along with the high number wearing the German team’s shirts, I’ve seen Swedes, Poles, Costa Ricans, Mexicans, English and Brazilians (though I’m not sure that many of the people wearing Brazil’s colours are actually Brazilian). And they’ve all seen at least one Australian.

    In one of the shopping areas, people can launch a ball (from a huge boot) onto a large canvas with holes in it. I think the deal is that you win a prize if you get the ball into one of the holes, and the smaller the hole the bigger the prize. There was a long cue of people waiting for a turn.

    Further along, there was a penalty kick contest. You get to strike the ball into an unguarded goal; the speed is measured; and you can score up to 100 points for your shot. To get 100, the ball has to go into one of the top corners. The Mexicans in town were particularly keen on this game but if the Mexican players take penalties like their fans do, they’d better hope that they avoid a shootout in the knockout rounds.

    There are flags everywhere. A lot of businesses are displaying the flags of all 32 nations. Some just have the ten teams that are playing in Cologne. The tighter streets near the Rhine River have the flags hanging between buildings.

    I walked past one of the dedicated fan parks with its enormous screen. Each city hosting World Cup matches has at least one fan park where people can gather, at no cost, to watch games.

    They were testing out the sound system at the time. It appears that there will be music played, horn noises and commentators yelling Tor! whenever a goal is scored. I hope they don’t go overboard with that stuff because I expect that the fans will generate the best atmosphere themselves.

    After my short walk, I returned to my hotel where an Italian and an Irishman were playing table football in the hotel’s bar. The big screen there was showing highlights of German matches from previous World Cups.

    Maybe I’m watching at the wrong times, but the majority of football I’ve seen on German television seems to be focussing on the past, not the current World Cup.

    Tomorrow I will be attending a match at the World Cup finals for the first time. Even though it’s not the opening match, I’m glad that I’ll be getting an early fix by seeing a game on the opening day.

    Now, why don’t I do something completely daft and finish today’s entry with some predictions. I should warn you that my predictions haven’t been good lately. My last effort was backing Bosnia & Herzegovina to win the Eurovision song contest. (And since you asked, the Bosnians finished in third place.)

    But here we go: the opening ceremony will be monumentally boring (that part is easy – all opening ceremonies are boring); Germany will overcome the absence of Michael Ballack to defeat Costa Rica 1-0; and the match that I attend will see Poland also win 1-0.

    Oh, and Spain will win the World Cup. (That’s if anyone can stop mighty Australia.) You heard it here folks.

Now, where’s the local asylum?



 
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