SELECTION ROUND OF NATIONAL IDEAS

SPORTS

Football, which I see and feel here, seems to have returned to its original state of the people's game, fun for the plebs. Coaches' interviews, players' predictions, experts' statements, expert analysis - all this is not heard here, at the very...

Football, which I see and feel here, seems to have returned to its original state of the people's game, fun for the plebs. Coaches' interviews, players' predictions, experts' statements, expert analysis - all this does not reach here, at the very bottom of the pyramid. Thousands of multilingual crowds of fans wandering the streets of Portuguese cities, drinking hectoliters of beer, gathering three hours before matches to stadiums, do not read newspapers and do not watch news feeds on the Internet. The only source of information for them is the TV, which makes it possible to see the game for those who do not have a ticket. And also - the next day after the game, watch replays of goals.

TVs are everywhere. In any middle-class bar there are three of them, and in more impressive bars there are screens on the walls, and projectors under the ceilings. On such screens, the players are visible almost life-size at medium plans. On slate boards in front of restaurants they write what kind of fish is served today - smoked sardines, smoked mackerel! - and what kind of match you can watch. Traders in seashells, bracelets, T-shirts in the colors of national teams and nuts set up televisions next to their tents, under white awnings - not for the public, but for themselves. They sit on stools, leaning forward, resting their elbows on their knees, and carefully follow the movement of small figures on small screens.

It seems that there are representatives of all European nations, including those whose teams did not make it to this celebration of life. A couple of days ago, I was surprised to see Finns checking into my hotel. It seems that the northern guys only then found out that the national team of their country did not get into the final part of Euro 2004. This discovery shocked them so much that they filled the neighborhood with loud shrieks and loud curses all night long. In the morning in a restaurant, at eight o'clock in the morning, I observed a lonely elderly Finn, who, sitting at an empty table, sadly shook his gray head, listening to the Italian arias that are played here for the delight of those who eat. The waitress asked what he wanted. White wine. No white wine! she answered with irritation. No red wine! No blue wine! No yellow wine! Bar is closed!” - answered the hard-hearted and, taking the Finn by the elbow, led him out.

The bars here are divided according to nationality. There is a bar where a large English flag hangs over the entrance and where they serve nothing but beer, there is a Dutch bar, which has turned from an ordinary institution into a bright and cheerful attraction before my eyes. All it took was a dozen liters of orange paint that covered the walls, a hundred orange balls and a couple of hundred triangular orange flags hung over the street. There is also a Russian bar, over which a giant tricolor flag with an eagle hangs, and where food is served, the very thought of which causes horror on a hot afternoon: cabbage soup, beef stroganoff, dumplings. All bars are open almost around the clock - now is the best time to make money! - and only the owners of the Russian bar are distinguished by a special outlook on business. Once I looked in there and read a handwritten announcement on the closed door: “We left for the beach before 16.30. Come back later."

The British, of course, are incomparably better than the Finns in understanding the football situation. These Beckham fans and Zidane haters are the most furious, the most aggressive here. I specifically went to see them in their bar during England's game against France. The spectacle is unforgettable. In the middle of the dimly lit bar stood a fat, blond-haired man wrapped in a British flag. A red cross was painted on a short-cropped head with a wide paint brush, and thick legs in white sneakers stuck out from under the flag. The small pig eyes stared at the screen incessantly, as if they were not living human eyes, but a plastic casting. The expression in her eyes appeared only when a waitress walked through the hall in a top that was tight around her chest and exposed her smooth, tanned belly - then it was the expression of a cat who saw a reckless mouse.

Behind me was a guy in a red T-shirt with three English lions. He, like everyone else, drank beer and at first glance gave the impression of a balanced or, at least, sane person. But only at first glance. In particularly tense moments of the game, he fell into paranoia and, shoving me with his shoulder, flew out to the big screen and yelled at the French. He raged, waved his arms, threatened Henri and Trezeguet with death and poured words, of which I understood only “fucking”, pronounced with saliva flying out of his mouth. All the French were "fucking". When French fans appeared on the screen - a sea of ​​blue T-shirts, a man waving a live Gallic rooster - all the hundred Englishmen in the bar clenched their fists, tensed their forearms, their faces turned to stone, and they dragged out a long battle song without words - the drawn-out howl of the warriors of the Scarlet and White Roses who have already prepared swords, axes and axes. A small Englishman in breeches, barely reaching the bottom edge of the screen with his head, at these moments galloped like a goat in the forefront, inflicting a dozen hooks and uppercuts in one minute. When the ball hit Barthez in the face, everyone was overjoyed and talked for a long time, discussing this great success of English football.

The closer the match came to an end, the scarier it was to watch them. When Beckham missed a penalty, the bar fell into a funeral silence. They no longer yelled, but begged: “Come on, boys!”. When Zidane scored the first goal, the bar suddenly sighed - touchingly, childishly, and when Zidane scored the penalty, I felt a heartache for these people. They sat and stood with beer in their hands, rallied in a tight group, with devastated faces. I made eye contact with one of them—they were human eyes, begging for understanding. We both shook our heads.

The screen in front of which they raged interfered with them - this thin white strip did not let them go there, into the stadium, into the space heated by passions, where they could use their fists. They jumped and yelled in front of the screen, like Papuans in front of bulletproof glass, not understanding why it does not let them through. But they couldn't leave it like that. They spent the whole evening after the game in a drunken trance in a small square between bars, where two of their compatriots, with their equipment outside, were playing old rock and roll. Some fans were naked, wrapped in sheer tulle curtains that they had torn off in hotel rooms. Then revenge followed, and it was not the hated screen and not the vile French that suffered, but the innocent Portuguese shop selling plates. Throw the bottle and the glass shattered. Late at night I heard screams through the window and did not know that this was a fight between English fans and the police. In the morning, green police buses delivered the arrested people to the court, before which our fans unfurled Russian flags in protest against the repressions. The Russian special operation was also discussed - how to recapture the British from the police with the help of our fans.

There are enough tough guys and hot, alcohol-fuelled heads to do something like that. I saw our fan here, traveling to the matches with his pregnant wife and having a tattoo on his arm, which is the number of his blood type and Rh factor. The man, as they say, is well prepared.

I prepared a little worse and in one situation, which is not the place to talk about, I received a blow on my right side, which made me forget how to breathe for a day. Pain with every breath, however, served as an occasion to get acquainted with the dearest Englishman, Dr. Landau, who has been living in Albufeira for fifteen years. The doctor assured me that there was no cure for the rib fracture anyway, so here are Voltaren tablets to help me breathe, and otherwise help with a three to six week wait until it heals or heals. With the help of Voltaren, washed down with white wine at lunchtime, I really began to breathe and even write lyrics, and the sight of a gloomy Englishman whom I encountered on the street proved to me that there was no need to toil about trifles. A narrow-shouldered tall Englishman strode past me with a stony face, very slowly, as if deliberately giving me more time to examine his physiognomy. His forehead was dented and sewn up with a simple black thread, as if unwound from a spool. Tails of thread stuck out of the forehead. What is it for such a person to fight with a Portuguese commando or even with his Rottweiler?

The Dutch get sick differently. In their bar on the days when Holland is not playing, there is a pleasant atmosphere - something between a bohemian and a student club. I, already accustomed to the abundance of faces and muzzles around with the most brutal expressions, here I felt myself among my own. Intelligent young people, talking quietly, drinking beer. No one threatens to kill anyone - what a pleasant surprise! In general, the Dutch, unlike ours, the British and the Germans, do not feel liable for military service, that is, they do not wear T-shirts in the colors of the national team around the clock and do not wrap themselves in flags for every occasion. Their color appears on the streets only on the day of the game, grows from morning to evening - and by the beginning of the match, the narrow street near the Dutch bar becomes completely orange. Dozens of people stand on a wooden platform, their backs pressed against the walls, and look at the TVs hung out on the street. The crowd is dense, but a guy in an Edgar Davids T-shirt and with a Dutch flag on his cheek gives way to me with a smile - unthinkable human generosity in an era of crowds and flea market!

Five Germans came to visit the Dutch. One of them is with a large German flag, which he zealously waves for an hour and a half. This man in a cap of black-red-gold flowers yells in a hoarse voice throughout the match, four others pick up. They constantly shout: "Jetzt geht's los! * ", and in the short breaks between screams they proudly announce their role: "Deutschland against the world!" Five Germans shout over a hundred Dutchmen for a simple reason: the Dutch do not shout. They look at the Germans from the height of their platform with calm curiosity, as a civilized person can look at barbarians devouring raw meat - and only occasionally, when the Germans are very dispersed and falling into megalomania, they siege the Teutons, chanting for several minutes just one word: Holland! It sounds strong and powerful. And the rest of the time they sing.

Yes, the Dutch sing - I have never seen such a musical crowd, endowed with hearing and a sense of rhythm. Two guys next to me sang quietly, as if to themselves, a song consisting of only growing “on-on-on” and ending with a rhythmic “Yap Stam!” - A ready-made number for good jazz. In a moment of apotheosis, when the Dutch team went forward, a hundred people suddenly sang a medley of opera tunes, and when van Nistelrooy finally scored a goal, they chanted, looking with ironic curiosity towards the Germans: "Jetzt geht's los!".

The Dutch are good - they have the freedom of people who are used to free love and mixing races. Standing on the street in front of the TVs, they hug their girls and smile almost all the time. Their girls are beautiful beyond the canons of glamor magazines - they have clear faces and wide hips, and they are more attractive than long-legged Barbie dolls with unnatural figures, created for catwalks, not for love. The girls are also in orange T-shirts. Around the neck of one of them hangs a garland of paper flowers in the colors of the Dutch flag, and in her ears are long amber earrings almost to her shoulders. The waitresses in the bar are also Dutch, they, in orange T-shirts and dashing wide-brimmed orange hats, merrily glide through the crowd with trays in their hands. With light, almost imperceptible and completely erotic touches of bare arms and thighs covered with jeans, they make their way among cheerful men. And they laugh - not because the owner ordered it, but because they really have fun.

There is something artistic about the Dutch men, as if these inhabitants of Amsterdam, The Hague, and Harlem were all one and the same - attic artists or unrecognized poets. I remember one of them, with a beautiful photogenic face - a mixture of Robert Redford and Robert De Niro - with bleached white hair, in an orange silk shirt with a frill, the sleeves torn off in connection with the terrible heat. The sleeves have been pulled out by the roots, threads sticking out of the seams. And in this shirt with the sleeves pulled out, there was something chic, some kind of gesture, some kind of chic ...

The German, who throughout the game with his flag brushed beer foam from other people's glasses at me, turned out to be a completely peaceful burgher with two cats and four dogs at home. I spoke to him. His wife is Dutch, she stood nearby in an orange T-shirt number ten, and after the game he presented it to everyone around him as proof of his peaceful intentions. He was not at all aggressive, as his hoarse cries and mockery, which he let out in the direction of the Dutch, might seem. He called them, for example, "buntes Eierlikor" ** - an allusion to the colorful Dutch life, as well as to a team in which whites and blacks are gathered under an orange banner. This man in a jester's cap, jumping up and down, lifting his knees high, fooling around, imitating aggression and playing severity, played the fool, as befits a man at a carnival.

But the most amazing example of carnival feeling and sincere passion I saw on the day when Italy played a draw with Denmark. Italy were favorites and should have won. And now, through the city, along its narrow streets going up, a young Italian was walking with an Italian flag. He was tall and thin, he wore gray trousers rolled up, and on his feet were beach slippers, in which, however, they go everywhere here. The flag was without a staff, one cloth, and what only he did not get up with him! He carried it on outstretched arms, threw it over his shoulders, raised it obliquely, and waved it with a wide amplitude. He either walked along the narrow pavement, or jumped down onto the pavement and walked straight towards the cars that slowed down and honked in greeting to him.

I followed him for a long time, we had long since left behind a carnival center strewn with bars, and walked along ordinary streets with high-rise buildings, shops and abandoned cafes in which no one was sitting. And all this time he sang and lamented aloud. In Italian, I know only a few words and expressions, but I understood him completely, to the last sound - he sang about his grief, and about beautiful Italy, which misfortune befell, and about his ended life, and about Del Piero, who deceived all hopes , and about Totti, who promised, but did not. On a steep climb, I overtook him to look into his face - he had a thin, tanned face in black wire-rimmed glasses, and something was written on his cheeks with a ballpoint pen. Children were playing in the sun-hot dust on the corner, they asked him: "Italia?", and he nodded, and then a black-tanned girl of about seven, laughing, with a brutal gesture of a tiny hand, pointed down with her thumb, saying it, and the Italian clutched his head, laughed and cried.

• Now begins!

** Variegated egg liqueur.