They’ll play better matches at this World Cup, but it will be hard to match tonight’s Germany-Poland encounter for atmosphere. The Westfalenstadion in Dortmund is a fantastic stadium – extremely compact, yet big enough to hold 65,000 people ... and they were in a frenzy at the end.
The way I put in my newspaper story was that the entire stadium was like a bottle of seltzer water, and it had been shaken all night by the near-misses, the hard fouls, the time-wasting by the Polish keeper – not to mention the underlying doubts that German fans have about this particular team. But after 91 agonizing minutes, the Germans finally found the festive release they so desperately sought when Oliver Neuville scored in injury time. It was as if he popped the top on that well-shaken bottle, and a nation’s emotions burst out all at once.
More tomorrow, but I've got to sleep. It's 5:30 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment