How they "root" for their own in Germany

... Well, it’s necessary - as soon as I left ... The fact is that I spent June in Germany and stayed with friends for a long time in Hanover.

Of course, the Germans have a football championship - the number one news. He overshadowed both the “Eurovision” by Lena from Hanover, and the unexpected resignation of President Horst Keler, and the unpopular social measures of the government to get out of the economic crisis.

Flags are hung on many houses, cars are painted in national colors, football attributes are sold everywhere. Almost everyone is sick with football. Even in offices they put additional TVs. There is nothing to say about bars and restaurants: screens are installed everywhere, there is a continuous football advertising on TV. In a word - footage.

But there are characteristic features that distinguish it from, for example, ours.

Well, firstly, in Germany, “all the flags are visiting us”-Greek, Italian, and Spanish. (It’s good that the Turks did not reach the final part.) There are English flags, and Serbian, and even Gan. They are peacefully coexisting with each other - in the same house, car, in the bar. Many foreigners, staring at their own, but living and working in Germany, install two flags at once: their own and out of respect for the country of residence - German.

You can root for your own loudly, not afraid to get a cobblestone in glass or a fist according to physiognomy. And when they lose, and when they win.

I was in Lubeck when Germany lost to Serbia. The upset German fans frowned at the narrow streets of the Hanseatic city, the noisy groups accompanied several policemen, about twenty meters from behind. The atmosphere of light mourning did not interfere, however, festively Hudia and Masha by national flags, to ride several cars with triumphant fans of Serbia. Not that no one paid attention to them, but there was no aggression. Only a group of Profi-Boleshikov began to chant “Shaizugal”, which in a rough form means “we care”.

And it so happened to us - it was necessary to go to the car through a pedestrian street, banned by fans walking in the opposite direction. They were accompanied by the police - quite boys and girls.

Having caught up with us and, apparently, reading some tension on our faces, one of the policemen, a young, handsome guy, suddenly smiled at us encouragingly - they say, everything is fine. It was very unexpected, and it was simply impossible not to compare these guys with our guards.

For the first match of the German national team, I went to “root” for the Germans in the crowd, where they hung a large screen and organized a collective view, along with beer, sausages, and selling souvenirs. There were probably thirty thousand, if not more. (Throughout Germany, more than a million people were dumped to look at the match with Australia at the stadiums.) Mostly fans in the squares are young people.

I disguised myself, put on my neck a garland from the petals of the national flag of Germany and entered this football anthill. For about 45 minutes it was quite high - energetically, curly, festive. Then it became too noisy for me, and I went to inspect home.

But what is characteristic: I was not annoyed by this German patriotism, young, mostly little drunken faces. It did not strain, even vice versa. But at home all the time worries.

Why? Maybe because it does not cost one football. Flags in Germany began to be posted only in 2006, when the next World Cup was held here. It is noteworthy that the Germans were embarrassed to hang out the flags before, to somehow demonstrate national paraphernalia-a complex. So Germany, for the first time since the 30s, was covered with banners only four years ago. There were discussions on this occasion, but the unspoken taboo was removed. And Germany is back in flags. But the championship will pass, football passions will settle, the flags will be removed.

I saw how people react to the German anthem in bars. (By the way, this is Haydn.) No way. No reaction. Only on football itself.
Because football is an external expression of patriotism: football will end, and everything will calm down.

True, I do not want the reader to have the impression of a certain idyll. And the tragedy that happened in Hanover is confirmation, although the exception.

The day after the first match, walking in a cozy park next to Rathaus, around a quiet, homemade pond overgrown with tender white and pink lilies, I found dozens of bottles and cans of beer in the water. What is called, “And in the morning they woke up” ... Here, after yesterday’s football, Barbara stopped.

Well - freaks are freaks, they are the same everywhere and, like any disgrace, do not have national coloring.

Photos are provided by the author