Danke Klinsi, Danke Deutchland

Germany is officially in love with Klinsi. Yesterday, his team played out their bronze medal game, and I was one of the three quarters of a million who braved the rain on the Berlin fan mile to cheer them on.

I probably was barracking for Jurgen`s boys, but to a large extent, it was more barracking for my own night. Once the first one went in from Schweinsteger, the prospects of a million strong dance party under the Brandenburg gate became a distinct possiblity. Once the own goal went in, the punch bowl was in the building, and when Schweiny got his second, and bz the time of his memorable third, I was in the arms of a man wearing tattoo sleeves and sunglasses at night who wanted me to touch the Schweiny number 7 he had on his back.

Klinsi rolled on the turf, and smiled and batted his blonde eyelashes. When Klinsi embraced Angela Merkel, the crowd went up again. `Klinsi, Klinsi, you are a football god` a sign read . It says much about the warmth this country has exuded that they can find such love for a man who didn`t deliver the ultimate prize.

Today it finishes. A final ticket seems to be beyond me, with the quotes I`m hearing veering between 1500 and 2000 euros. I`ll choof out to the Olympiastad to try mz luck one last time, but for an event watched by a few billion, I`m guessing demand isn`t exactly plummeting.

I`m achingly neutral as to the result. Italy and France would both be deserving winners. I just want to hit the fan mile, and enjoy what has been the eyperience of a lifetime for a few more short hours. Cam and Charlie, the two Melbourne boys I`ve travelled with here in Berlin, are both wearing Italy shirts with pink skirts. The nuance has been lost on most, who just assume they are accentric Azzurri fans.

Tomorrow, to frankfurt and home. Danke Deutchland for a wunderbar month.

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An udder champion

Yesterday, I sat in the third row, first level of the Munich stadium that sits like an oversized tyre in a district about twenty minutes from the city. I went to worship Zizu, to pay tribute to France’s greatest ever player (calm down Platini fans) and also because when a World Cup semi final is on, and you’re in the city, and you have a ticket, it seems silly to sit around eating cow’s udders.

Yes, that is a possibility when munchen in München. Cow’s udders actually happen at my local, a famous old wooden beamed brewery called the Weisses Brauhaus. The name of the dish is Kuheuter, and it’s best fried with tartar sauce. The intrepid traveller in me says I should have uddered up already on this trip, but so far, it hasn’t happened. I’m citing respect for the cow. Also on the menu, under a section called ‘the best part is the offals’ is Schweinsleber sauer or pork's liver sour with boiled potatoes, and kalbslungerl sauer known to you and me as calf lung sour.

Still, as everyone always says, the beer is good. And so important that a girl called Illona told me the other day that beer was not considered alcohol here in Bavaria. ‘It is a grocery, like orange juice or bread’ she said.

‘But it is alcoholic, isn’t it. Unlike bread?’ I slurred.

‘Yes. It is a grocery with alcohol in it.’

The France-Portugal game was electrifying for 20 minutes, and then descended into the ‘this is too important’ defensive malaise that has affected many of the games since the round of 16 began. I was perfectly positioned above Henry to watch his happy airborne moment, and concluded at the time the penalty was probably there. It’s a shame that the great players of this era are making falling over such a crucial part of the game. It’s a relief to watch Zizu, just for the fact that he seems to want to remain in possession, rather than just milking fouls.

When the crowd sang the national anthem at the 86th minute, I joined them, using the words to the old Fitzroy song. Fitzroy! Fitzroy! The club we held so dear. Then the Zizu chants began, and I felt the lump in my throat. One very big last game for the great man.

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Germany kaput

Kaput is one of my few German words, and I'm not sure if I'm using it correctly here, but the sad fact for the hosts is that the party, while not over, is no longer humming along at the same pace, and the clean up looks ominous.

I watched the game in the Hofgardens at odeonplatz, munich, leaning against a wall with my forehead. The goal, when it came, was deserved by the italians, and now I am seriously considering barracking for them in the final, if only because it will significantly improve our whinging. We've already kept it up pretty well for more than a week. I reckon I can push it right out until 2010.

I had a sad discussion with a German girl in the Hofgarden last night. She is a cultural anthropologist, and said that her heart wanted germany to win, but that she thought it would be better for the country if it lost. I asked her why, and she said that she didn't like to see the flags, and the younger generation wrapping itself in the national colours.

'But every country is doing it,' I said. 'Isn't it just good fun?'

"Yes, it is good fun. For most people it is good fun. But have you been out to Brandenburg? You will see people there for who this is not just fun.'

During the city tour of berlin, I had heard that Brandenburg was a place where neo-Nazism had taken hold with a youth culture devastated by unemployment.

'But surely that's a separate problem? Can't non Nazis have a fun month wearing face paint?'

She shook her head as the early part of the second half played out before us. if she was unsure who she wanted to win, this nil-all grind was the perfect metaphor for her tortured state.

'We have to be careful,' she said. 'With our history, we have to be careful. Don't be blind. Don't be too nice about Germany.'

I told her that they were doing a superb job hosting the tournament, and there was a real danger I would be too nice about Germany in the book.

She smiled a worried cultural anthropolgist's smile, and walked away.

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Strasbourg - the home of stras

I'm in Karlsruhe on the way to Strasbourg to watch the France game. Strasbourg is the home of stras, which with peanut butter, was one of the key staples of my primary school lunches for 7 years. It doesn't tend to keep well in a schoolbag. I'm going to do some vox pops to discover who was the first person in Strasbourg to think to add sauce to stras.

I'll also be watching France play in france. Viva le mundial.

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Angry Adolf and the second row blues

The front row. It’s something I’ve coveted for years. To be spat on by rock stars. To see where the foundation ends and the pallid neck begins on a theatre actor. To know the drainage gradient of a cricket ground.

Well on Tuesday, I sat down in the front row of all front rows. World Cup, Round of 16, Dortmund, Brazil versus Ghana. The name on the ticket said, ‘FIFA Football Family’, which if it includes me, is going to be a spectacularly crowded Christmas table.

I scored the ticket through the pot luck of contacting a Frankfurt based former workmate who traded in life as a solicitor at Minter Ellison for the high life of international ticket broker. I know that job description sounds like longhand for ‘tout’, but as Matt A does not have either an English accent or a limp, I’m willing to believe he’s running the straight and narrow. He extended the incredible kindness of a FIFA family ticket for face value (€120). I think he did it because last time we saw each other, we were climbing the back wall of the grandstand at Moonee Valley to watch the second of Sunline’s back to back Cox Plate wins. Do your time at the back, and the front rows will come.

The walk down to the seat was electrifying. My fellow FIFA family member, Franz Beckenbauer was 40 rows behind me. I was descending the steps until I could walk no more. The halfway line, row one. There was a lean bar in front of me, and then a drop to a security cordon and a wheelchair zone. Then the fence, then the pitch. The only able bodied non-security personnel in front of me were three hip shaking, beaded, shrieking Brazilian women in the national bikini top, with super short skirts. Nobody moved them on. Most people noticed they were particularly able bodied.

The Ghanaian and Brazilian players strode out to the triumphal music, and headed across to sing for me, hands on heart. They’re huge down here. Even the little kids they’re marching beside are huge. The stars lined up for the national anthems, fidgeting, preparing for the biggest game of their campaigns thus far. I caught Ronaldhino playing with his nose. The Brazilian national anthem bounced to life, a happy jaunt when compared to some of the more sombre European tunes. I feel like I’m close enough to yell out, ‘Hey Ronaldhino, you’re maybe a little flat!’ Or perhaps even ‘Hey Ronaldo, you’re maybe a little fat!’

I said nothing of the sort, even though up close, the great man was enormous. Not as tall as Dida or as statuesque as Kaka, just bulging in the midriff and backside. He stared at the ground and clapped once as the anthem drew to a close. Then it was the Ghanaian anthem. If anything, the men in white were even closer to me, but in the absence of the suspended Essien, I was unsure of who to be awed by.

At kickoff, I could barely concentrate on the game because I was still fixated with the close quarters view. The ball was chipped out to Cafu on the right wing, and I actually hear the it connect his forehead, watching the beads of sweat fall from his frame. I heard the faint murmur of players calling to him over the roar of a 60,000 strong crowd. This is ridiculous. I could be at Froggy Hollow Reserve in Camberwell, watching guts that are even less subtle than Ronaldo’s bounce around. Yet this is Brazil, and in my green and gold, I’m virtually on the bench.

I almost missed the first goal because I was so busy taking photos. I caught it through the viewfinder of my digital SLR, clicking away like I was one of the bibbed professionals just a few metres in front. What I could do if I had one of their Hubble lenses. Ronaldo’s magnificent dancing feet are a blur when I review the snaps. I twist the mode dial so that the little running man takes over from green auto square. I’ve never used the little running man mode before. This is new territory for me photographically.

Other people have the same idea, and every thirty seconds or so, my view of the game was blocked by a happy punter trekking down the aisle to take photos. A man in the row behind was unhappy. ‘Get away’ he screamed at the interlopers, his voice hoarse. ‘If you want a good seat, you should pay for a good seat!’

I turn around to look at him, and a bald, sneering man repeated his point.

‘There are too many distractions,’ he said, frowning, somehow finding a negative in our pitch-side Nirvana.

I asked him his name.

‘My name is Adolf,’ he said. ‘I’m Italian.’

It was my first Adolf in Germany. I’m not expecting many more.

‘What did you think of Australia versus Italy,’ I asked, rejoicing in the fact that I was further distracting him from the game at hand. One of the Coke sellers arrived with his metre high backvat full of cold drink to further complicate his view. Good job backvat kid.

‘It was a good game,’ Adolf sneered. ‘Italy has more than a hundred years of tradition, so it deserved to be made the winner. You are Australia at your first World Cup. It would have been wrong for you to have made it to the quarter final.’

I didn’t bother correcting Adolf to say that we were at our second World Cup. I didn’t run him through any of Australia’s own football traditions. I didn’t tell him about Johnny Warren, and the terrible heartbreaks and the lifting of the curse. I didn’t tell him about Alvaro Recoba, and his now outdated claim of Uruguay’s ‘god given right to be in the World Cup.’

I just sat down and shut up, before standing up again and again and again, right in Adolf’s field of vision. He left before the final whistle, miserable to the end, Never able to drag himself out of those second row blues.

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