European Football Championship The European Championship in the “Summer of Love”? Party atmosphere on the streets
Hundreds of thousands of people celebrate during the European Football Championship in Germany. Photo
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
Hundreds of thousands of people are celebrating during the European Football Championship in Germany. This was not something that was expected before the tournament. But now people are happily jumping from left to right.
On your next holiday in Holland, do you automatically jump back to the right when you’re asked to move a little to the left? No problem! Do you suddenly think of the happy national coach Julian Nagelsmann during a completely relaxed 80s party? Also normal! The first ten days of the European Football Championship with its amazing atmosphere are to blame for your new habits. Is Germany already in summer fairytale 2.0?
On Sunday evening, well over 100,000 people watched Germany’s game against Switzerland on the city’s fan mile. Huge flags, black, red and gold make-up, pink jerseys – after years of tournament sadness during Corona and far away in Qatar, everything was completely normal again. “It’s a nice feeling,” said Nagelsmann. The national team is occasionally shown clips of the party in the fan zones.
Over 25 million people in front of the screens
The 1:1 draw with the late goal by Niclas Füllkrug, which was compared to the mood-breaking goal by Oliver Neuville in the 2006 summer fairytale in the second group match against Poland, was watched by an average of 25.566 million people on ARD alone. Well over a quarter of the German population – completely normal?
In times of war and crisis, the tournament was not expected to be very well received. Images of the 2006 World Cup seemed out of date, especially since national celebrations had been taken over by right-wing groups in recent years. And now: “While we in Europe argue about everything and everyone, the European Championship is, as the Germans put it, a summer of love,” wrote the Dutch regional newspaper “De Twentsche Courant Tubantia.”
“To the left! To the right!”
Before their European Championship matches, the Oranje fans marched through German cities and sang their “Naar links! Naar rechts!” almost hypnotically. The international media also used the crowds of fans as a reference in the eternally skewed comparison to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Hardly any European fans celebrated in the Gulf, which is still a bad memory in this country.
For the European Championship organizers, the images of the large crowds at the Brandenburg Gate, on the Heiligengeistfeld in Hamburg or on the banks of the Main are a kind of reassuring confirmation. “Overall, we are very satisfied, and we can feel that from the guests too,” said tournament director Philipp Lahm, who recently took his own delay with Deutsche Bahn in his stride.
The country’s infrastructural deficiencies became abundantly clear during the European Championship days, but they did not become a party crasher. The European Football Union UEFA officially states that the European Championship stadiums are at full capacity, and after successful German games with a smiling Nagelsmann, Peter Schilling’s big 80s hit “Major Tom” is played in the respective arena.
No significant incidents so far
The truth of the – to paraphrase the 68-year-old singer – completely relaxed atmosphere is that there have been hardly any incidents worth mentioning in the stadiums or in the fan zones. The police are deployed in large numbers, and the German Red Cross has drawn a positive interim conclusion for the first few days of the European Championship. Ugly posters and chants with right-wing nationalist content did occur – but not in large numbers that attracted major international attention.
On Monday, the English newspaper “Guardian” published a series of photos with motifs “away from the action”, which also show the peaceful coexistence of fan groups. “The football fans from a wide variety of nations create a unique and extraordinary atmosphere in the city,” said the organizers of the Cologne fan zones.
What also helps: The weather in Germany is getting better. The German Weather Service announced the “UEFAEuro2024” weather for the games in Düsseldorf and Leipzig on Monday. “Pleasant temperatures” were predicted for kick-off.
Increase possible
“We hope, of course, that Germany will go far and that the weather will stay summery,” wrote the fan zone organizers in Hamburg. Because there still seems to be room for improvement: At the pre-Corona European Championship in 2016, where the DFB selection was eliminated in the semifinals, there were significantly more people on the streets. But after the DFB selection lost 2-0 to hosts France, the party was quickly over.
dpa
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