Last weekend saw the end of the World Cup, so I watched the final game with a few friends at a bar in the red light district. There was the game, then overtime, then the infamous head-butt by France's star player (which was all the talk the next day around the proverbial water cooler, although we don't have a water cooler, since Swiss offices stock bottled water, both flat and fizzy, that workers keep at their desks), and then the penalty shootout. As soon as Italy won, the French fans slunk away to lick their wounds, and the Italian fans (Zurich has a sizable Italian population, supplemented by the Swiss who hail from the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland) poured out into the streets, converging on the red light district, which is the area that has the largest ethnic and immigrant populations. Incidentally, it also happens to be the area that is least patrolled by the police, which may in part explain what happened after the game.
Soccer fans are insane. They painted their cars in red, green and white, just so that they could drive them through the streets while honking and hanging out of windows and sunroofs, waving huge flags and banners (if Italy had lost, or if they had been eliminated earlier in the World Cup, I'm not sure what they would have done with their cars. I'm not sure what they're doing with their cars now that it's over). Those who didn't have cars painted their faces and bodies, and they brought their flags, banners, bullhorns, air horns, confetti cannons, flares, and fireworks into the crowded squares. It was like a grade school Fourth of July warning video, with people lighting Roman candles, rockets, and flares in the middle of the crowd with little regard for safety.
Anything that was elevated above street level was fair game for climbing. There were fans perched on top of awnings, cars, ticket machines, bus stop shelters, traffic lights, and street signs (the street signs here, unlike in the States, are load-bearing, so every street sign had a soccer fan or two balanced precariously on top, waving a flag, spraying champagne, or shooting rockets in the air). Although it was past midnight, parents had brought their infants and toddlers to come celebrate with the drunks amidst the broken bottles and hissing flares. To the American eye, the whole place was a hundred accidents waiting to happen. Or a battle scene from a movie about some sort of Italian revolution, what with the smoke, explosions, flashes of light, and Italian flags as far as the eye could see.
And the noise! Switzerland is such a quiet country that when there is noise, it's quite a shock to realize that these people do indeed know how to be loud. Car horns are rarely used in normal driving in Zurich (which isn't something you could say about New York or Boston), but are apparently reserved for liberal use after soccer games. People brought two or three air horns each (you can't expect one air horn to last through an entire evening!) Bars blared techno music in the street. Whistles, bullhorns, and yelling supplemented the noise, since car horns, air horns, and ground-shaking techno were clearly not enough.
I don't think there is a single international sporting event that would inspire so much excitement among Americans. Our biggest events are the World Series and the Superbowl, but those are national sports, and even they don't create the same crazed fervor that the World Cup incites (and if mild, reserved Switzerland went this crazy, I can't even imagine what it was like in Italy). Also, they don't go in for the hardcore marketing and advertising that go hand in hand with big sports in the States. After the Superbowl, people talk about the commercials more than the game, but there were hardly any commercials during the World Cup games. It seems that they watch sports for the sake of watching sports? Crazy Europeans.
Soccer fans are insane. They painted their cars in red, green and white, just so that they could drive them through the streets while honking and hanging out of windows and sunroofs, waving huge flags and banners (if Italy had lost, or if they had been eliminated earlier in the World Cup, I'm not sure what they would have done with their cars. I'm not sure what they're doing with their cars now that it's over). Those who didn't have cars painted their faces and bodies, and they brought their flags, banners, bullhorns, air horns, confetti cannons, flares, and fireworks into the crowded squares. It was like a grade school Fourth of July warning video, with people lighting Roman candles, rockets, and flares in the middle of the crowd with little regard for safety.
Anything that was elevated above street level was fair game for climbing. There were fans perched on top of awnings, cars, ticket machines, bus stop shelters, traffic lights, and street signs (the street signs here, unlike in the States, are load-bearing, so every street sign had a soccer fan or two balanced precariously on top, waving a flag, spraying champagne, or shooting rockets in the air). Although it was past midnight, parents had brought their infants and toddlers to come celebrate with the drunks amidst the broken bottles and hissing flares. To the American eye, the whole place was a hundred accidents waiting to happen. Or a battle scene from a movie about some sort of Italian revolution, what with the smoke, explosions, flashes of light, and Italian flags as far as the eye could see.
And the noise! Switzerland is such a quiet country that when there is noise, it's quite a shock to realize that these people do indeed know how to be loud. Car horns are rarely used in normal driving in Zurich (which isn't something you could say about New York or Boston), but are apparently reserved for liberal use after soccer games. People brought two or three air horns each (you can't expect one air horn to last through an entire evening!) Bars blared techno music in the street. Whistles, bullhorns, and yelling supplemented the noise, since car horns, air horns, and ground-shaking techno were clearly not enough.
I don't think there is a single international sporting event that would inspire so much excitement among Americans. Our biggest events are the World Series and the Superbowl, but those are national sports, and even they don't create the same crazed fervor that the World Cup incites (and if mild, reserved Switzerland went this crazy, I can't even imagine what it was like in Italy). Also, they don't go in for the hardcore marketing and advertising that go hand in hand with big sports in the States. After the Superbowl, people talk about the commercials more than the game, but there were hardly any commercials during the World Cup games. It seems that they watch sports for the sake of watching sports? Crazy Europeans.
No comments:
Post a Comment