Police are finding it harder
The first half of the football World Cup was relatively calm for the German police, but in recent days the guardians of order have found it harder to do their duty. Fights between fans still remain local phenomena, so the fear of mass brawls between football hooligans from different countries has not yet been justified. In all the time the Mundial has been hosted in Germany, only two clashes have been registered, and neither of them matches the scale of the famous brawls that took place, for example, during the 1998 World Cup in France.
One of them was recorded in Cologne: a drunken English fan climbed onto the equestrian monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I, and his friends could think of nothing better than to throw empty beer bottles at him. One of them hit a policeman on the helmet, after which the valiant keepers of order realized that not all passers-by had such headgear, meaning such amusements could end badly. The British hooligans resisted, but they were arrested – 50 of them. However, the next morning they were released – the English, having sobered up, themselves realized that they had been wrong.
But there are far more serious incidents. So, last week in the Berlin suburb of Schönefeld, where one of the German capital's airports is located, three local skinheads attacked a 15-year-old black teenager who had come to the tournament. They fractured his skull with a cobblestone – the boy is now in the hospital in serious condition. It is noteworthy that the attackers also ended up there: a group of German fans who happened to be nearby intervened in the fight and thoroughly beat up the neo-Nazis. After leaving the hospital, they will go straight to prison – before trial. The judge decided not to release the thugs on bail, which the National Democratic Party of Germany offered to pay for them – it was their leaflets that the three thugs were gluing on poles and fences when they noticed the lonely boy and decided to have some fun.
An alert was declared in Leipzig: a police patrol discovered a suspicious package near the local central stadium. The national teams of Angola and Iran were playing in this city, and the police had received a warning the day before that some terrorists might try to set off an explosion. Three houses were evacuated, but fortunately the alert turned out to be false: the package contained the 'equipment' of an Iranian team fan: a national team jersey and an Iranian flag.
Meanwhile, victims of the championship are appearing beyond Germany's borders. At the beginning of the week, news came that in Indonesia a criminal shot dead two fans who, in his opinion, were too loudly expressing their support for the Italian team. And the press center of the French police reported that in the small town of Pontarlier in eastern France, a 30-year-old fan received 14 knife wounds from three drunk fans of the Ecuadorian team: he had dared, after the Germany–Ecuador game, to speak contemptuously about the Ecuadorians' play. At present the victim is in the hospital, but doctors do not have any fears for his life.
Nostradamus – champion!
It looks like some Europeans are envious of how South America and Africa use, so to speak, unconventional means to achieve victories at the 2006 World Cup. And indeed: the Ecuadorian team brought a shaman with them, who ran around the stadiums, howled at the moon – and Ecuador advanced to the 1/8 finals instead of the Poland everyone expected. True, on the eve of the match against the German team, the shaman did not risk 'conjuring a victory' for his players, rightly believing that no spirits would protect against the tank attack of the Bundesteam. So instead of a defeat of the Germans, after another session of shamanizing in Berlin at the Olympic Stadium, he simply promised everyone that the game would be good, kind and interesting, and that no one would be injured. And interestingly, he turned out right again.
"The Ecuadorian shaman is a smart man," the German newspapers concluded. "He took into account the mistake of his Togolese colleague, the great voodoo sorcerer" (the latter came to Germany and conjured up three whole victories for his players in the group stage). Everyone knows how that ended. Now the Togolese Football Federation, known for having 'squeezed' incentives from its players, so much so that they introduced into football practice a term unfamiliar to FIFA, 'strike', refuses to pay for the trip of the sorcerer and his assistant to Germany, not to mention the 'offering to the spirits'. The spirits, they say, did not earn a bonus.
As for old lady Europe, the Spaniards decided to stand up for its spiritual honor. This people is strictly religious, Catholic, so they are hard pressed with sorcerers. But there is a fail-safe predictor for all times – Michel de Notre-Dame, better known to the world as Nostradamus. It turns out that in one of his famous quatrains he quite unambiguously expressed himself about who would become the world champion of this year: 'In the sixth month of the sixth year, the Spanish king will cross the Pyrenees with his retinue and return the Holy Grail to Spain.' It couldn't be plainer. And the Spanish team with its play once again confirms the seriousness of the intentions to 'return the Grail'. And even the 'Spanish king' is present with the retinue – well, not the king himself, but the crown prince, still. So bookmakers are seriously thinking about the final odds.
Chancellor plus smile
Long ago, compatriots gave Germany's first female chancellor, Angela Merkel, many nicknames. Among them are flattering ones, like 'Iron Lady,' and not so flattering, for example, 'Black Widow.' One nickname is 'chancellor minus smile' (Angela Merkel smiles so rarely that a smile on her face becomes a sensation for journalists). The only reliable case in the last year when the chancellor smiled in front of a large crowd, as they say, from ear to ear, was when she spoke at a press conference on the occasion of her election as head of the German government. And even then, the smile appeared on her face only after much persuasion from reporters and quickly disappeared.
These days Germany and the whole world are seeing a completely different Angela Merkel. She is not just smiling, not just laughing. She is laughing out loud, enthusiastically slapping Franz Beckenbauer on the back and shaking her fists in the air – in short, she is behaving in a way that is completely unbecoming of a head of state. The reason, of course, is football. The chancellor, like the whole nation, is simply sick with football fever. She hid this illness for a long time, pretending that football did not interest her at all – for which she received another nickname – 'Helmut Schmidt in a skirt' (as is known, this also very unsmiling chancellor simply did not like football).
When at the beginning of the championship she announced that she intended to attend all the German team's matches, Germans took this as a display of the strongest self-discipline. However, on the very first day, at the match in Munich between Germany and Costa Rica, the country was astonished: the chancellor seemed to have been replaced. Angela Merkel chanted along with everyone and jumped after every strike by the German players – no one expected that. When photos of the chancellor, screaming something in delight at Oliver Neuville's goal in the match against Poland, spread around the world, not only Germans were surprised. Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who was present at the match and sat next to Mrs. Merkel, later admitted: 'I could only shout like that in my youth at Solidarity rallies.'
After the victory over the Ecuadorian team, even the captain of the Bundesteam, Michael Ballack, admitted his amazement at Angela Merkel: 'I have only seen such an outburst of emotion from girl fans. She is a wonderful supporter.' The secret was revealed by the chancellor's ex-husband: it turns out that back in 1974, she was at the stadium with her pastor father during the famous match between the teams of West Germany and East Germany – and it was then that she 'caught' football fever. However, in Germany no one holds this against her. On the contrary, the personal rating of the chancellor as a fan is growing by leaps and bounds: according to an EMNID poll, 87% of Germans admire Angela Merkel.
Germany for 'Dummies'
For the numerous American fans, a guidebook was published that continues the famous computer series 'For Dummies' – 'Germany for Dummies.' It sounds strange, but many Americans who came to Germany were shocked: here no one runs around in leather pants (especially in Hamburg, where the American team is staying), the number of German shepherds on the streets does not exceed their numbers in American cities, and even – what a miracle! – the German president is not named Hitler, but Keller!
'Keep in mind – Germans behave not at all the way you imagine!' warns the guidebook. It contains many useful tips that Americans would hardly have thought of on their own, for example: 'Never lean on someone else's car: a car in Germany is a sacred object!'; 'Never sit in the sauna in swim trunks!'; 'Don't call anyone between 20:00 and 20:15 – at this time all of Germany is watching the news on TV!' All this is only the simplest part of the 'crash course on Germany.'
'Advanced dummies' should know much more. For example, although the World Cup slogan sounds like 'A world at the home of friends,' it is very difficult to make friends with a German. Most Germans have nothing against foreigners, but they are naturally somewhat distant from strangers. Everything that means friendliness in America – a wide smile, expressions of joy, questions about well-being – is perceived by Germans with distrust. Richard Lord, the author of a book called 'Culture Shock,' advises: 'Do not be too friendly to strangers. Germans will either think that you want something from them, or decide that you are crazy. They are by nature not very smiley guys. At best,' Lord considers, 'you will be taken for a typical dimwitted Yankee.'