Halloooo IBSoccer! Hallo from Berlin!
Luis Young here with a quick report on the happenings in this beautiful city and some impressions of the champions league final of Barcelona vs Manchester united. First of all, let me just say that Berlin isan amazingly beautiful and cosmopolitan city, with friendly people, clean air, great weather, tons of parks and open spaces, bicycle lanes on every (yes every) sidewalk that get constant use by supermodel-esque citizens, and a rich and diverse culture. Despite my obvious language barrier (nobody out here speaks Spanish, ha hah) I’ve managed to get around and see the sights and meet some new people with relative ease. But enough on the tourism let me talk about soccer!
During my trip here I only had one definitive plan in mind for the entire trip, that is, one thing that I absolutely had to make time for and could not miss. That was finding someplace to watch the final of the champion’s league. Since I wanted to get an idea of who the locals were supporting, I made sure to keep a keen eye out for people wearing various soccer jerseys to see if I could identify any. Well, during my 5 hour layover in London on the journey here, I managed to hop on the underground subway and zoom into central London for a couple of hours to see the sights, mainly Buckingham square, the parliament building, Big Ben, and the like. I wasn’t sure what I would see, but to my surprise, practically anyone I saw wearing a jersey had Chelsea colors. (Good thing I wasn’t wearing a Spain or Barca jersey hehe.) Once in Germany, I didn’t see very many jerseys on the streets, as most people dress up in a quintessential German professional attire, but the ones I did see were of Barca (Henry#) and a Spain (didn’t catch the name#) jersey, so I was feeling pretty good at this point.
Now, during the first few days of walking through the city, my other task was to keep an eye out for a sports bar or pub to go see the game. While walking through the Kreuzberg district one afternoon, I saw what appeared to be the perfect places, brightly colored spots tucked along the streets with the words SPORT in the name and images of soccer. Perfect, I thought, and made a note to return here for the match. Well, sure enough game day came around and I was running late from my adventures in the city that day, so with only 20 minutes until kickoff I hurried to the train to get back to Kreuzberg which arrived in the district just as kickoff was taking place. I walked as fast as I could to the areas I remembered, and about 10 minutes into the match found the first place I thought to watch the game at. Two things suddenly occurred. First off, I discovered that this wasn’t a pub but instead was a sports betting center in which there were several chain smoking Turks all staring towards a wall on which the game was being projected. The second thing that happened was, no sooner had I walked through the door, that I witnessed Eto’o cut inside past a Man-U defender and toe-poke the ball through Van der Sar for the first gol of the match. YES! The room erupted in cheers. Yes x2!! At this point I started to get the impression that the majority of fans here were rooting for barca. Sweet. But there was no place to sit, no drinks, way too much cigarette smoke in the air, so I decided to rush across the street to the other spot I had picked out. Once there, it was the same scenarios, a crowd of chain smoking Turks all staring at a screen in what was not a pub, but another sports betting center. Drat! At this point, panic started to set in, and I spent the next 5-10 minutes speed walking through the neighborhood looking for what would be a real bar with the game. I ducked into the first place I found, which also had a few chain smoking Turks watching the game in fuzzy quality on a wide screen tv. I hurried in and found a seat, nodding politely to the gentleman next to me, and somehow managed to order a beer by making gestures and pointing to the fellows beer next to me, the language barrier in this area was high, as no one spoke any English. But that was ok, I had a place with a seat and table and a beer to watch the game. And what a first half it was. Man-U appeared to be overwhelmed by Barca playing a confident Spanish style of futbol with their signature midfield possession. There were a few occasions where Man-U broke down the field on the attack, but they were unable to piece any dangerous passes together in the box and Ronaldo’s one shot was struck poorly going wide of Valdez goalpost. During the match I attempted to make some conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me, but being in the Muslim/Turkish quarter, he spoke no English, so the going was difficult. Of the few things we were able to discuss and agree on were, he was rooting for Barcelona (England no good, bleh sounds and thumbs down), he likes Villarreal a lot (mentions of Turkish striker Nihat), and American politics are no good (Bush very bad, but Obama ok so far), so already we had a few things to agree upon. However, once the halftime break arrived, my friend from the states and I decided to try to find a more agreeable bar with a larger German crowd and some serious German beer. Before we left my host predicted a 2-0 win for Barcelona. We shook hands and parted ways, and ended up running around the neighborhood some more, popped our heads into a couple of other sports betting bars to check the score, and then managed to find a very authentic German pub crowded with soccer fans of all types watching the game on a big screen projection. The place was already packed and we ended up standing at the back of the room for the rest of the game watching intently from a distance to see what would happen next.
Much as the first half had gone, so did the second half, with Barca dominating midfield possession, and even some impressive attacking from Puyol. When Man-U took any possession you could hear the whistles raining down from the crowd in the Rome stadium. (It seems as though the whole world was rooting for barca to win, and with the way they’ve been playing all season it was no surprise that they were the natural favorites. Manchester-who?) As I continued to watch, it appeared that the strategy for Xavi was to play a very defensive mid and feed Iniesta and Messi for the attack. And attack they did, with lots of one touch passing and very confident runs by Messi through the middle. When suddenly the 2nd gol occurred, it almost seemed as though it wasn’t a legitimate gol, perhaps an offside, but sure enough the score line went up 2-0, and the crowd in the bar erupted in cheers. Messi had scored in the finals of the champion’s league and all was good in the world. The play continued in favor of barca for the entire match. Why Rooney was playing up the left and they weren’t attacking barca’s back-right Sylvinho (who was in for Alves) is a mystery to me, and you could see the frustration on the Man-U players as they were denied and dispossessed time and again. Eventually, the clock ran out and the bar once again erupted in cheers as the final whistle was blown. I did my part to cheer out in Spanish and clap loudly as well; such was the conclusion of a fabulous game and season. At this point I managed to stumble back to the hotel, content with the knowledge that Spanish futbol was once again the dominant force in Europe, not only on the international level but at the club level as well. Next stop: World Cup 2010!!!
For some reason as soon as I heard that Park was “promised” a spot in the starting 11 I had a bad feeling about this game. Yes it’s true Park deserved some credit for the way he played and helped us reach this point but picking a team based on loyalty is a sign of weakness. Sir Alex was out matched, out witted by a 38yo manager with a depleted squad.
