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Jun. 19th, 2006 09:25 amThe road to Hell is paved in… yellow
Munich awoke to glorious sunshine and a sea of yellow shirts. With both Brazil and Australia in town, the party had gone on late the night before. That rare breed, the footy-mad Aussies, whooped it up on the Hell (as the natives call their lager here) and mixed with the Brazilian fans in the beer gardens that are dotted liberally around the city.
Of course it would have been rude not to join in the party, and we consumed Hell in large quantities, in combination with lumps of dead animal with potatoes and sauerkraut. When in Germany… Saturday had been spent in one beer garden with a big screen, watching first the Czechs’ surprise (but deserved) defeat to Ghana, followed by Italy just about managing to scrape a 1-1 draw with the Americans, and the Hell went down well. Sunday started in another, with my good intentions of starting on the shandy evaporating in another litre of Hell.
Yet again sardines were the order of the day on the way up to the ground, though thanks to a little local knowledge – my friend Mike, who’s lived in Munich for the past eight years, was with us – we managed to sneak onto the U-bahn before it stopped to fill itself up with the massed hordes of yellow-clad fans at main station Marienplatz. Those seats we snaffled were most welcome.
The Allianz Arena (or the World Cup Stadium, as it’s been renamed for the duration of the tournament thanks to Fifa’s ludicrously all-encompassing rules to protect its ‘official’ sponsors) looks rather weird from the outside. Maybe they should have named it after official sponsor Continental instead as it resembles nothing more than an outsized car tyre, albeit a white one. For night matches, apparently, it is lit up from the inside, blue when 1860 are playing at home and red for Bayern, with the eerie glow visible from miles around – and even in the skies as planes come in to land.
There was an appalling crush to get in to the security checks, as huge metal fences had been erected, funnelling the fans into an entrance maybe four feet wide. The ground around the stadium is gravelly and looks unfinished, a far cry from the lush green landscaping that surrounds Schalke’s lovely ground in Gelsenkirchen. Once through the turnstiles, concrete was the order of the day around the open area underneath the stands.
Concourse level is at the top of the lower tier, with the pitch set in a huge bowl below ground level. And it was a pretty impressive sight, with three levels of seating all the way around underneath that tyre-shaped roof. It was hard to tell which was the Aussie end and which the Brazilian, with both sets of yellow fans making a stack of racket, reaching a crescendo as the players ran out onto the pitch. Prize for banner of the day: ‘Ronaldo ate all the pies’.
Brazil had hardly looked convincing in their first game against Croatia, and they started the same way. Ronaldo trundled around like a somnolent sea-slug waiting for the ball to come to him, as if chasing it were beneath him. Adriano was little better. Ronaldinho seemed to have left his tricks at the Nou Camp. Their attitude is bizarre. If you can’t make an effort in the World Cup Finals, when can you?
The Aussies started much the brighter – it was their big day, and they were going to treat it with the respect and effort it deserved, even if it was too much bother for the opposition. Millwall-supporting Mike cheered on former Lions Tim Cahill and Lucas Neill, and claimed that even Wednesday and Millwall would fancy taking on Brazil playing like this. He has a point.
German referee Markus Merk had a poor game – some of his decisions were bizarre in the extreme, such as rewarding Brazil for a heavy tackle with a free kick, and the Aussie defender picked up a yellow card for dissent into the bargain. No complaints with the stupid yellow Big Ron got, though – he ignored the offside whistle and blasted the ball into the net regardless. The refs have clearly been told to clamp down on timewasting. Quite right too. One strange observation, though: why did the ref and linesmen change from blue to red shirts at half time? Were they trying to keep both 1860 and Bayern happy?
Mercifully, the second half was a little better; one or two of the overpaid lazy Brazilians had clearly had a rocket inserted in their posteriors at half time. It took just four minutes for them to score: for once the well-organised Australian defence failed, and Adriano woke up for long enough to blast the ball into the net from the edge of the area.
Liverpool’s Harry Kewell came on for Evertonian Cahill 10 minutes into the second half, and immediately began to threaten, hitting the side netting and shaving one just over the crossbar. Sadly for the Aussies, he couldn’t quite break through, and when Robinho came on they suddenly had a player who looked like he wanted to be out on the pitch. Why on earth did he not start instead of Big Ron? And sure enough, fellow sub Fred scored in the 90th minute – a mere couple of minutes after coming on – after Robinho’s shot rebounded from the post.
The Aussies had played well, and the final score of 2-0 really didn’t reflect the Brazilians’ lazy, complacent performance. So much for them being favourites to win the tournament. My money’s on Argentina.
Photos are here
Munich awoke to glorious sunshine and a sea of yellow shirts. With both Brazil and Australia in town, the party had gone on late the night before. That rare breed, the footy-mad Aussies, whooped it up on the Hell (as the natives call their lager here) and mixed with the Brazilian fans in the beer gardens that are dotted liberally around the city.
Of course it would have been rude not to join in the party, and we consumed Hell in large quantities, in combination with lumps of dead animal with potatoes and sauerkraut. When in Germany… Saturday had been spent in one beer garden with a big screen, watching first the Czechs’ surprise (but deserved) defeat to Ghana, followed by Italy just about managing to scrape a 1-1 draw with the Americans, and the Hell went down well. Sunday started in another, with my good intentions of starting on the shandy evaporating in another litre of Hell.
Yet again sardines were the order of the day on the way up to the ground, though thanks to a little local knowledge – my friend Mike, who’s lived in Munich for the past eight years, was with us – we managed to sneak onto the U-bahn before it stopped to fill itself up with the massed hordes of yellow-clad fans at main station Marienplatz. Those seats we snaffled were most welcome.
The Allianz Arena (or the World Cup Stadium, as it’s been renamed for the duration of the tournament thanks to Fifa’s ludicrously all-encompassing rules to protect its ‘official’ sponsors) looks rather weird from the outside. Maybe they should have named it after official sponsor Continental instead as it resembles nothing more than an outsized car tyre, albeit a white one. For night matches, apparently, it is lit up from the inside, blue when 1860 are playing at home and red for Bayern, with the eerie glow visible from miles around – and even in the skies as planes come in to land.
There was an appalling crush to get in to the security checks, as huge metal fences had been erected, funnelling the fans into an entrance maybe four feet wide. The ground around the stadium is gravelly and looks unfinished, a far cry from the lush green landscaping that surrounds Schalke’s lovely ground in Gelsenkirchen. Once through the turnstiles, concrete was the order of the day around the open area underneath the stands.
Concourse level is at the top of the lower tier, with the pitch set in a huge bowl below ground level. And it was a pretty impressive sight, with three levels of seating all the way around underneath that tyre-shaped roof. It was hard to tell which was the Aussie end and which the Brazilian, with both sets of yellow fans making a stack of racket, reaching a crescendo as the players ran out onto the pitch. Prize for banner of the day: ‘Ronaldo ate all the pies’.
Brazil had hardly looked convincing in their first game against Croatia, and they started the same way. Ronaldo trundled around like a somnolent sea-slug waiting for the ball to come to him, as if chasing it were beneath him. Adriano was little better. Ronaldinho seemed to have left his tricks at the Nou Camp. Their attitude is bizarre. If you can’t make an effort in the World Cup Finals, when can you?
The Aussies started much the brighter – it was their big day, and they were going to treat it with the respect and effort it deserved, even if it was too much bother for the opposition. Millwall-supporting Mike cheered on former Lions Tim Cahill and Lucas Neill, and claimed that even Wednesday and Millwall would fancy taking on Brazil playing like this. He has a point.
German referee Markus Merk had a poor game – some of his decisions were bizarre in the extreme, such as rewarding Brazil for a heavy tackle with a free kick, and the Aussie defender picked up a yellow card for dissent into the bargain. No complaints with the stupid yellow Big Ron got, though – he ignored the offside whistle and blasted the ball into the net regardless. The refs have clearly been told to clamp down on timewasting. Quite right too. One strange observation, though: why did the ref and linesmen change from blue to red shirts at half time? Were they trying to keep both 1860 and Bayern happy?
Mercifully, the second half was a little better; one or two of the overpaid lazy Brazilians had clearly had a rocket inserted in their posteriors at half time. It took just four minutes for them to score: for once the well-organised Australian defence failed, and Adriano woke up for long enough to blast the ball into the net from the edge of the area.
Liverpool’s Harry Kewell came on for Evertonian Cahill 10 minutes into the second half, and immediately began to threaten, hitting the side netting and shaving one just over the crossbar. Sadly for the Aussies, he couldn’t quite break through, and when Robinho came on they suddenly had a player who looked like he wanted to be out on the pitch. Why on earth did he not start instead of Big Ron? And sure enough, fellow sub Fred scored in the 90th minute – a mere couple of minutes after coming on – after Robinho’s shot rebounded from the post.
The Aussies had played well, and the final score of 2-0 really didn’t reflect the Brazilians’ lazy, complacent performance. So much for them being favourites to win the tournament. My money’s on Argentina.
Photos are here
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