EM Fever

I don’t know how many of you know or love the power of football (soccer for you guys in North America). It is one of those few areas of the collective European Union lifestyle that is not convoluted politics, but simple and pure passion. Luebeck, Germany, all of Europe is in a fever because of the UEFA European Football Championship (in German, EM for short).

The championships started a few days ago. Germany has played once so far. They won the game against Poland, and the fans celebrated the team’s victory loudly, by driving through the streets with their air horns and drunken screams until four in the morning. (Oi!)

When it comes to football, everyone, fan or no fan of the sport, gets caught up in the jubilation. You might be able to avoid or discount the magic of Christmas if you are Scrooge, but you can’t help but to be drawn into football.

This is a film trailer that perhaps captures for a moment how people feel about this sport.

And, how are we celebrating the EM? Rather nicely, thank you, considering the fact that we don’t own a television and we are not really fans of the sport. We just let ourselves get swept along with everyone else.

As of Thursday, the next time Germany is to play, the entrance area and inner court of our apartment building will be transferred into an EM football arena. The building is an old (1890s) wealthy merchants family home. The entrance to the building was built to allow for horse and carriage to go through to the back warehouses.

The game will be projected onto a large screen mounted on the side of the building, industry bbq fired up, picnic tables and benches rented and set up to accommodate the people in our building as well as plenty of others colleagues, friends and family members. It promises to be a fete of the sorts we normally do not see, in our rather quiet existence.