7/8/10 4th week
The fall of a Nation

54, 74, 90 , 2010, ja so stimmen wir alle ein,
mit dem Herz in der Hand
und der Leidenschaft im Bein
werden wir Weltmeister sein.

-German football anthem (translation not given, do it yourself)

            Paul the octopus was once again inserted into his feeding cage.  He is no ordinary octopus; no he’s an oracular octopus, though whether or not he knows this is somewhat doubtful.  In any case he has once again been placed in his tank along with the two colorful plastic boxes of food.  Would it surprise you to find out that this rather generic looking, albeit patriotic, plastic food containers are also not normal?  Of course it wouldn’t! These boxes contain the fates of nations, or at least the fates of certain nation’s football teams.  Not the least of which, is Germany.  Yeah, it is said that whichever team’s box is chosen by the anointed of god, Paul, for his supper, that team shall be the victor in the upcoming match.  And so far, Paul has been a very accurate seer.  The results of each of Germany’s matches have been predicted correctly by this eight limbed sea creature.  And despite the hopes of fans across Deutschland, his fatal decision held true in Germany’s latest match against Spain. 

            Despite all the Logic stacked against Paul’s case, he once again proved the pundits wrong.  Disbelief turned to realization of the Octopus’s powers, at right about the 85^th minute as the score remained Germany 0 to Spain’s 1.  And it turned out that that singular goal was all Spain would need to advance to the final, leaving a stunned silence hanging in the air all over the Bundesland.  From Olympia Stadium, to the Hirschgarten people were stunned.  I now know what it feels like to sit in a huge stadium with forty thousand other people and experience complete silence.  It’s hard to explain.  It’s as though all the beer trenched victories experienced at the Beer Garten, all the spectacular goals saluted with wildly patriotic toasts, (patriotism is something Germans very rarely exhibit outside of a football event),  all the four to zero blowouts and ushered in by the triumphant blast of vuvuzelas, has all come down to this moment of silence,  this sad little memoriam of something that could have been great, something that should have been great, a dream that is now dying with the last echo’s of “Deutschland!” in the now dark and Empty stadium. 

            Then football fever is simple over the next day.  People go to school; they don’t stay at home and feel depressed, they just get one with their life. Sure there’s the Weltmeister final to watch on Sunday, but now it’s just another game to viewed on the TV; there’s also the third place game, but as I’ve found out the Germans really do stick to the Mercedes Motto, “the Best Or Nothing” and many of them would simple be disgusted by such a farce. 

(And that’s all for this week’s update.  Sorry about the delay with the pictures.  They will be posted tomorrow on all the updates where they are missing.)