don't worry, I'm a professional.

At least that's what I pretend when it's soccer tournament time.

As I admitted yesterday, 4 years ago I knew next to nothing about the game of Soccer. In that first summer, though, I learned quite a bit after watching 3 solid weeks of match after match after match. I even managed to win the favor of most of my students last year when I could correctly define offsides. 

but let's be honest, I still don't really know all that much. I watch it for 3 weeks every other year (world cup and euro cup, people!). 

I don't know anything about the players in the regular season, yet I still yell "SCHWEINIIIIIII!!" with the best of them. I couldn't tell you who plays for which club regularly, but I can name almost every player + position on the German national team (and I don't even know what the positions really mean...).

During Euro Cup/World Cup season, I'm probably on the UEFA home page just as often as Facebook, checking the stats, ready to debate each possible outcome of the group points and remind you that Germany was the only team to finish the group round with 9 points (meaning they won all of their games) this year. 

And when the rest of Germany watched this adorable scene of the German coach during the match against the Netherlands, I was there with them sighing "ach, der Jogi!"

Here's the thing. I pretend to know a lot more than I actually do about soccer. But for 3 weeks every other year, I can carry on a pretty convincing conversation! 

How I learned about Soccer

We're currently in the middle of the 2012 Euro Cup. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's like the World Cup, only - you guessed it - just for European teams. Just like the World Cup, though, the Euro Cup happens every 4 years. Which means the last one was in 2008 - during my year in Zürich. 

Oh, and what's that? Not only was I in Europe for the Euro Cup, but Switzerland and Austria co-hosted it that year. So I was really in the middle of the action.

For the month of June the whole country turned into soccer-mania. Zürich had souvenir, food, and drink booths lining the streets and giant screens all around for public viewings. Public viewings are great, and something they really need to implement in the US. It is exactly what it says - a big screen put up in public to view the game. You don't have to pay anything, just show up, find a place to stand, and join in the masses cheering on your team! It's really one of my favorite parts about tournament season in Europe. 

Before that summer I'd never really seen soccer, and my knowledge of the game ended at "kick the ball into the goal." But, of course, after 3 weeks of soccer madness, and a social life that consisted almost solely of going to watch the matches together, I learned quite a bit! 
  
I loved watching the 2010 World Cup with my friends in Athens, but since the Euro Cup is where it all started for me, I have a particular fondness for it. Especially since I will always associate it with that summer in Zürich - which may or may not have been one of the best of my life (depending on how cheesy that sounds to you). 

giant captains from some participating teams set up in the Zürich main station

Of course Switzerland was in full support of their team, this basically means "Go Switzerland" 

My favorite public viewing screen, out on the Zürisee

The Fan Zone was always bursting during game time!

Limmatquai lined with fan booths and football enthusiasts

Heja Sverige! Shahida and I in full support of Sweden during one of their matches

Enjoying some post-match foosball, you know, cause there were just foosball tables on the street.

I have the worst timing ever.

Remember that time I told you Dortmund was on their way to becoming the German soccer champions? 

Well, way back in the beginning of May, they made that happen! The night of the winning game, it was complete madness in the city. Since I could hear the celebration from my bedroom window, I decided to go check it out. 

But that was only the spontaneous, post-win celebration. The official celebration would be an all day party about a week later. And even though they won the championship last year, this year was a big deal too, because they also won something else. I'm not really sure what it was, or how they won it. I just know one win was decided by the points of the season and came with a big silver plate looking thing. And the other was decided by one game and came with a big golden trophy cup.

And what better to do for the celebration (Meisterfeier, to the locals), than gather everyone, offer them beer, and parade the silver plate thing and golden trophy with the team through the city. So Katharina and I grabbed our BVB cups of beer and joined the masses to wait for the show.

they even turned the fountains yellow for the occasion

In retrospect, bringing that big cup of beer with was probably a bad a day. No, it was definitely a bad idea. It didn't take too long for me to realize I really had to pee. And about 15 minutes before the parade was supposed to roll through our area, the pee-dance set in (you know, when you bob up and down because you have to go so bad). But I figured, 15 minutes - I could make it, snap a few photos, then make a mad dash for our apartment that was maybe 200 meters away. 

But the city was overrun with people in the streets, so of course, there was no way they were actually going to show up on time. The minutes rolled on so painfully slowly. And I continued dancing in my spot, convinced that as soon as I left to seek a bathroom, they would turn up. Finally, after about 40 minutes of agony, I decided it was no longer worth it and headed off in search of a bathroom (I couldn't get back to our apartment because it was impossible to cross the street at this point). 

Of course, the only place with a bathroom was a tiny little pizza place with a line out the door. So I got in line and waited (and danced). And sure enough, about 15 minutes later, someone runs in the door "They're coming, they're coming!" Well too bad, I had already put in too much time in this line, and I was going to see it through to the end. 

I was able to catch the very end - at least saw the silver plate thing and golden trophy with my own eyes, which counts for something, right? But you can thank Katharina for all the pictures of the sacred soccer parade. 

Go team!

The first night Patrick and Karrie arrived, I had a big plans for them: we were going to a Dortmund soccer match. 

Now soccer in Europe is a big deal, but in Dortmund it's a REALLY big deal. They are in love with their team here. And with good reason. Last year Borussia Dortmund, or the BVB,  won the Germany championship, and they are well on their way to winning it again this year. 

So right after arriving, after a nap and a currywurst, the three of us headed off to the Signal Iduna Park stadium (the largest stadium in Germany, btw) for our very first live soccer match! 

When we arrived, the atmosphere was just as lively and as exciting as I had hoped! The crowds were insane. I mean, this was the line* to get into the stadium. 

*of course by "line" I mean "giant mob of people"

And the crowds didn't end there. We had stehplätze, which literally means standing places. So we went to head to our standing block only to find it was just as crowded as outside. This was our view of the field, and with the crushing amounts of people, it didn't look like it would get any better. 

I'm not going to lie, the excitement of it all kind of faded when we realized we probably wouldn't be able to see the game. So we did the next best thing: went in search of some beer. We couldn't have wondered around very long till we found this nice little opening to stand in. 

It wasn't the best view, but at least we could breath. Since we found a reasonable place to stand, I headed off to grab us all some beers, and when I got back, our luck really turned around.

See the stadium worker in that last picture? She tried to talk to Patrick and Karrie while I was gone, but since she didn't speak too much English, it didn't go over so well. So when I got back, she approached me and the conversation went something like this

Her: Do you guys work here?

Me: Oh no, we were just wandering around...

Her: Ok, well it's just that you're not actually allowed to stand here.

Me: Well, we have Stehplätze, but there is not even room to breath down there. And they've come from the US to visit me, so we were just walking around to find a place to see the game.

Her: Well you wait here for a second, let me check something.

She then went and gave her section a once-over. After about 30 seconds she came back to us and told us she had found some free seats and to follow her. She led us through a few secret locked doors and around the stadium to another section where she walked up to the ticket checker there and explained our situation. He then told us that if we had any problems with our seats (i.e. if the people with the actual tickets came) to just come let him know and he'd help us out. 

It was the nicest thing and so exciting! So, just before the first half ended, we settled into our new seats, which had a much better view of the action. 

The rest of the game was great and we were all so glad that we got hooked up with some new seats. It really made the whole experience that much better!