The View from Germany: The Brazilian Invasion of Berlin Begins
The past couple of days in Berlin have seen rising temperatures and an increasing number of Brazil fans descending on the city. The tournament holders play Croatia here on Tuesday and from what I’ve seen on the streets there should be plenty of samba dancing in the crowd that night.
Because we haven’t had a game in Berlin yet, the city has largely seen a smattering of fans from around the world to go along with the massive numbers of German supporters.
There are pockets of Dutch fans walking around with their distinctive orange shirts and cheerful personalities.
There are a fair number of Poland fans still shell shocked about their team’s poor performance against Ecuador. There are some Aussies draining the beer gardens and some Irish pretending that their team qualified.
Today I also started to see the checker jerseys of Croatia. Their fans should make their presence known in Berlin, but increasingly the scene is becoming one of yellow, blue and green.
Brazil is the favorite on the pitch and one of the favorites off of it. All the stores are prominently displaying the canary yellow kits and flags that we all know so well. While many of the fans wearing these colors have come all the way from South America, I also get the sense that many are fans who have simply adopted Brazil as their team.
The Brazil-Croatia game might be one of the better matches of the first round. Even if it turns out to be a dud, you can bet Berlin will be partying that night. Hopefully I can learn how to properly samba over the next few days.
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Comments
By Lucas | June 12th, 2006 at 1:28 am 
If you samba you need to post video of it. I know plenty of people would love to see it.
Posted from 
United States
By zé | June 12th, 2006 at 4:03 am I remember there was this movie about a guy who wanted to learn to play football/soccer, forgot the name. He lived in some country where there was some kind of tension between two different heritages, or ethinies, or religious groups. Something like Ireland, or Norway (I don’t remember, I eam terribly sorry).
Well, the guy wanted to play, and he saw some interview on TV with some brazilian football superstar, and he said he used to play so well because he used to dance Samba back in Brazil and Samba have him all the agility and body moves he needed to perform well at football.
So the guy on the movie does what? He buys a SAMBA DANCING video somewhere and proceeds to home where he tries to watch the tape and, with the help of a friend, learn how to dance samba so he can play better.
The thing is: he wasn’t dancing samba. It was some kind of Tango, I don’t know. You don’t even dance samba with a partner, you just do it yourself.
It was a real “WTF?” moment for me. Anybody seen that movie? It’s an old, TV-like movie. Pretty simple movie but I guess it had some kind of message (the guy falls in love with a girl from the different ethnic/religious group, has to dispute her with a rich kid from the same ethnic group she has) which I failed to gather.
Bonus real samba video after all this rant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJvPt9K_Zo
Posted from 
Brazil
By Euler | June 12th, 2006 at 4:06 am Nice!!!! I want to read all your reports from Deutschland!!! And feel free to mingle with the Brazilian crowd. You’ll see that we really love to make new friends. Where are your pictures???
Tell the Brazilians I’m sending a hug! ‘Um grande abraço’ = ‘one big hug’
say: oom grandy abrasoo
By Claude | June 12th, 2006 at 7:32 am Go Croatia and kick those arrogant bozos back to S. America.
Posted from United States
By xue | June 12th, 2006 at 11:23 am I love Brazil,and I am from China.
hah~ nice to make friends with you.
Posted from 
China
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