Dick reports...

FIFA FEVER

“Women cannot play Soccer” a friend told me at a club recently, when we were discussing the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011. This will be the sixth instance of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the international women’s football world championship tournament that takes place every four years. It will be held in Germany – who has won the right to host the events in October 2007 - and has been scheduled to take place between the 26th of June and the 17th of July.

Sixteen teams will compete at the World Cup finals. Two-time defending world champions, Germany have automatically qualified as the host nation. The opening game – Germany vs. Canada - was held at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin and we had a chance to see it on large screens at various locations in Toronto – including the Dundas Square at Yonge and Dundas streets - in downtown Toronto, on the 26th of June. The other venues in Germany will be Augsburg; Bochum; Dresden; Frankfurt; Leverkusen, Mönchengladbach; Sinsheim and Wolfsburg.

The huge crowd at Dundas Square was a typical “Soccer” crowd. Dressed to the hilt in things ‘German’ – some even draped themselves in German flags, others wore huge sunhats in the German colors and most of the were waving flags of various sizes and some even had their faces - or parts of it - painted Black; Red; and Gold.

FIFA crowd at Dundas Square

After the singing of the Canadian and German National Anthems everyone sat down again – those that had managed to get a chair - and the game started. The picture quality of the huge screen was fabulous and even the fans in the back had no trouble following the rapid action. “Women cannot play Soccer?” Well I hope he was watching the game and revised his opinion. ) Those girls were fantastic athletes and still graceful – most of them – it was tremendously entertaining. After Germany shot the first goal the crowd went wild – especially the Germans. Those that appeared to be a little disappointed were obviously the Canadian viewers. That did not change much after the second goal. They seemed to feel a little better after Canada got their first goal. 2:1 was the final score and everybody seemed to be in a good mood when the game was over – especially the Germans, after “THEIR” team beat Canada – but no rowdiness or boisterous comments by the fans. Since then Germany also won 1:0 over Nigeria. Unfortunately Canada also lost to France 0:4, so we just have to wait and see what the final outcome will be. Meanwhile we wish those incredible athletes all the best for the future and to keep ‘headers’ (Kopfball) to a minimum to avoid brain damage. Video- clips of the highlights of many of the games are available on the internet. Just google “FIFA Women’s World Cup”.   rka

Dick reports about community, historical, cultural, ethnic events within the distribution area of Echo Germanica from a German-Canadian perspective.