Published: August 20, 2008 03:57 pm            

In the midst of soccer fever

NEWTON — At my age, I am surprised by very few things, but when I got off the train in Zurich, Switzerland on June 20, I must admit that I was immediately amazed. There in the center of the immense station were six soccer players. Now, there is nothing unusual about soccer players in or out of uniform. These soccer players, however, were different.

They were 40 feet high and in a huddle with arms across each other’s shoulders as though they were ready to go into a game. Their shoes and uniforms were accurate in every detail and must have been supplied by the Adidas Company because the word “Adidas” in letters a foot tall were on each uniform and on their shoes.

As we pulled or luggage through this giant soccer team, I wondered why they were there. Not being a soccer fan (which in Europe is called “football”), I didn’t realize we had arrived in the midst of the European Soccer Playoffs – an event comparable to the playoffs leading up to the NFL Super Bowl in this country. While we were making our way to our hotel some six or eight blocks away, we realized that the entire country of Switzerland was caught up in a soccer frenzy. Posters of players were prominent in the windows of shops. Shrubbery down the median of one mid-city boulevard had been trimmed into spheres and spray painted to represent soccer balls while wooden cut-outs of players were placed on either side of these growing soccer balls.

After we had found our rooms and opened the windows – Air-conditioning is Europe is a rarity – we took a short rest and went to find a sidewalk café where the menu outside looked appealing. After dinner, which took about two hours – Customers are never hurried at a sidewalk café; in fact, some people sit for hours over a single cup of coffee – we walked along the main street paralleling the river. When we crossed this street earlier, it was filled with traffic and street cars moving in both directions. It was now eight o’clock in the evening, and the scene had completely changed.

The street was now closed to traffic, including the street cars, and was filled with hundreds of people. Each café had a giant television set inside and outside so customers would not miss one moment of an ongoing soccer match between Holland and Russia.

Interspersed among the eating places, many of them in temporary tents, were small stages with entertainers. People could stop and listen to a group of musicians, watch street dancers or buy all manner of sweets to munch on, plus a whole spectrum of drinks. Memorabilia for every European team was available for sale. In fact, we bought “sweat bands” for our two soccer-playing granddaughters – no matter that the bands were in support of the team from Holland.

We found it interesting that this mass of people, many of them family groups with small children, some dressed in the colors of their favorite team, was much more orderly than the crowds that frequent Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. Strolling among the crowd, but keeping a low profile, were a number of police. These uniformed officers were never obvious, but everyone knew they were there.

We left Zurich the next day needing sleep. Although we had gone to our hotel well before midnight, the city had throbbed with soccer fans for most of the night. (Russia had defeated Holland, but it didn’t seem to matter who had won.) Our rooms were on the second floor of the hotel, and we had to keep the four windows open because a heat wave was moving across Europe. The soccer revelers celebrated well into the morning hours – mostly young people who wandered up and down the sidewalks talking and singing. In fact, one group changed the tire on a motorcycle below our window at three in the morning.

By June 29, when Spain played Germany for the championship, the soccer madness had reached its peak. People were clustered in cafes, in front of stores, and even in parks watching television sets. Spain defeated Germany one to “nil” (nothing in our scoring system). One could almost feel the let-down people were experiencing – something similar to the feeling many Americans have after the Super Bowl is over.

Although soccer is now extremely popular in the United States, it was not until recently that the sport was widely played in this country. Almost all towns and cities now have soccer fields as a part of their recreational complexes.

Many different cultures have played a sport similar to the modern game of soccer, but no one can really say with any certainty when or where soccer began. It is known that earlier variations of what later became soccer were played almost 3,000 years ago. Although the game is widely played in the United States, Europeans are the ones who become totally immersed in the game – mentally, physically and emotionally. I know because I was there during the most recent European championship games.



Ovid Vickers, a retired East Central Community College professor, writes a weekly column for The Newton Record.

        

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