First, finish typing the latest articles on the qualification of Murat Yakin’s team against Luciano Spalletti’s. Then, quickly go to the apartment to dry off (it was hot, very hot in the Olympic Stadium and sometimes, the beers flew low), put on a jersey with a white cross, then try to find some Swiss on a spree, party a little and watch Germany against Denmark. That was the plan.
Except that, as expected, it wasn’t easy. Berlin is a huge city and the bistro corners are scattered over dozens of square kilometers. I had to admit that the Swiss fans weren’t around me or were quietly eating on the nice terraces of Oranienburger Straße, for example.
The festivities had started around noon, there was a procession between 2 and 4 p.m. So of course, some people had to regain their strength, others had to regain some lucidity, or even sleep, for the most “enthusiastic”. In fact, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Because thanks to my status as the rare Swiss in the area, I felt like I was entitled to my quarter of an hour of fame, so dear to Andy Warhol.
I cross a terrace looking for a place to sit and watch the game? It’s “Glückwunsch!”, “Glückwunsch!”, “Glückwunsch!”, “Glückwunsch!”, “Glückwunsch!” and more “Glückwunsch!” from every guy in a German jersey I come across. It’s impossible to walk a metre without having to cheers with a local. Several have tried to explain things to me, but multiply German by seven or eight beers and I’m like “Ja, ja…” pretending to get it.
“I hope you will blow away the English,” one of them also tried to make me understand, not in full possession of his means and who will end up falling asleep before the 2-0. The fifteen minutes of glory continued all evening, until the greatest moment: when a disappointed young Italian woman gave me her place at the bar, in recognition of the Swiss superiority of that day. A nice gesture, clearly deserved.
It was finally a little later in the night that I ended up meeting some Swiss people. But here too, mutual understanding was complicated. Except that at home, we’re used to it. So with a few sentences in a sort of Swiss German, two or three words of English when we couldn’t find the right words in our respective languages and a good effort in French from my new German-speaking friend from Wil, we were able to sing for end the evening well.
Given where he came from, songs were launched both in honor of Murat Yakin’s troupe and in glory of Silvinho, the former star striker of Lausanne-Sport and FC Wil. Old Germans present in this bar did not understand everything that was happening, but it had the gift of making them laugh. I tried to take a secret photo of them so legendary were they, but as you can see below, it was no longer quite the time to try to frame things.
It was a beautiful evening…
