Agony and Ecstasy
England
The path to Buckingham Palace is still hung with flags to celebrate 50 years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, but last week England had a new monarchy. As King Sven and Prince Beckham led England to a pivotal 1-0 upset over mighty Argentina, more than four million people across the country were skipping work, cutting class and generally shirking their obligations to be a part of the most nationalistic moment since the Falklands War with Argentina in 1982. "I'm definitely more excited about this than the Jubilee," said an 11-year-old named Sam, who had traveled from Manchester with his older brother to join the nearly 2,000 people who had gathered in the Odeon Cinema, at London's Leicester Square, to watch the match. "It's a sacred day," says Susie Stanford, a student at St. Paul's school in London who finished her exams in time to don head-to-toe England regalia and watch the game. "It's a national holiday, basically." Within half an hour of the victory, as taxis, trucks, and groups of young men roamed the streets flying England flags, T shirts reading "England 1 Argies 0" were being sold on the streets. Never mind the Jubilee—God Save The Team.
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In Buenos Aires' financial district, scores of people standing in line to change pesos for dollars watched the duel with England on televisions set up on a makeshift worktable. "Football helps us forget our problems," says Ricardo Gandin, the newsstand owner who had brought the TVs. But when Argentina fell behind, these sidewalk spectators let out a deep, collective groan of despair. Tempers soon began to flare. "To even suggest we might lose is like insulting my mother," hissed Orlando Maldonado, 30, a government employee who watched the game from the street "because it feels like you're in the bleachers." Meanwhile, an enterprising vendor hawked rosaries in the national colors for about 50 cents each. But divine help wasn't forthcoming. This time there would be no hand of God to save Argentina.
Kashmir
In a land as divided as Indian-administered Kashmir, the chances to come together and forget the blood and hatred are few. Ethnic loathing is evident even at sporting events: when the Indian cricket team played the West Indies and Australia here in the 1980s, the home team was shocked and humiliated to find the crowd cheering for the opposition. But before India (not Britain) brought bat and ball to Kashmir, football was the sport of choice. And even on Friday, as shells rained down across the Line of Control killing three outside the Indian-administered border town of Poonch, football fans gathered around the few TV sets in the leafy summer Kashmiri capital of Srinagar to watch England vs. Argentina. "When daily one sees and hears about people getting killed, watching the World Cup may sound unthinkable," says civil engineer Farooq Ahmed Khan. "But how else do we escape the mental agony?" Srinagar tailor Bashir Ahmed Shah counts Nigeria's Jay Jay Okocha and Sweden's Patrik Andersson among his favorite players. He curses the blackouts that repeatedly cut into his reverie of international harmony. "There was a sudden power failure in the last moments of the U.S.'s 3-2 win over Portugal," he says. "It was so painful." In Kashmir, that's a kind of pain they can live with.
Portugal
At the Carlucci American International School of Lisbon, 40% of the students are Portuguese, 25% American and the rest hail from 27 other countries. When the U.S. played Portugal, loyalties were divided. Sixth grader Tommy Andrews is an American born in Portugal. He supported Portugal "because soccer is its national sport. If it had been basketball or American football, I would have supported the Americans." Another sixth grader Bryan Ferrell, whose mother is American and father Portuguese, backed the U.S. because it was the underdog and because "Portugal was too convinced they would win." When the Americans scored their first goal, the reaction among all was one of disbelief. After the second and third American goals, the Portuguese were in shock. "Those who brag most fall the hardest!" shouted American eleventh grader Kyle Raper, who showed the Portuguese students the American flag and asked them to sniff it: "Does it smell like victory?" But most of the other American students felt sorry for their Portuguese classmates. Said one girl: "It meant more to them than it did to us."
China
It would have been unimaginable a decade ago. A thousand soccer fans outside the Worker's Stadium in Beijing, sucking tallboy bottles of Tsingtao and watching a big-screen broadcast of their country's maiden World Cup game. This was the most sensitive day on the political calendar—June 4, the 13th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre—and here was an uncontrolled public event in a country where people are warned on National Day to stay home and watch fireworks on TV. I asked the guy next to me, who was about 40, if he ever thought he'd spend June 4 in a crowd cheering for China. "We're mature enough to know what's politics and what's soccer," he answered. Then he told me how he saw people shot in Beijing that night and how the government would one day have to apologize. We exchanged phone numbers to watch the next game together. It was all so normal. Three days later he called to apologize. He'd given a fake number and was afraid to meet again. "These conversations are still too dangerous," he said. His country had lost 2-0 to Costa Rica. The crowd departed quietly and with much still unsaid.
India
The Samantas, a wealthy and illustrious Calcutta clan boasting 107 members (and growing), work and play hard. Their recreational passion is not cricket but football. Seven in the family have life membership in Calcutta's historical Mohun Bagan club, which lifted the Indian Football Association shield in 1911 by beating several British teams—thereby helping inspire India's independence movement. The clan's conglomerate, A.B. Composites, makes an ever-widening range of products from industrial wastes, like door frames for railway coaches. But every four years, the Samantas switch off by switching on. "For a month, we just watch the World Cup," says 67-year-old patriarch Anukul Samanta. "We don't miss a single match." Two family members are in Seoul for the games. The rest rely on nine TVs set up in the clan's stately three-story mansion in the eastern part of Calcutta. In between games, the Samantas rush to their offices, working as fast as possible in time to return for kickoffs (there are no TVs in the offices or factories). "We're a bit selfish," says Mukut Samanta, who looks after marketing. "But since we don't do anything but watch football for a month, we can't afford to let our employees do that too." Who says football is a game for the masses?
Japan
Yoshimoto Adachi doesn't know much about soccer. The retired stationery store salesman from Nakano is a part of Japan's baseball generation, and soccer, in Japan, is a young man's sport. But that didn't stop Adachi from pitching in to help out on the World Cup. "I'm doing this for my country," says Adachi, a spry 70-year-old who darts about Tokyo station handing out maps to visitors. Say what you will about Japan's national ennui. The World Cup proves the country still excels at two things: one is construction (it spent $4.6 billion building six new stadiums and fixing up four others). The other is civic duty. When the country needs them, a spirited army of housewives and retirees come running. Outside Saitama Stadium, a housewife tenaciously tails a foreign fan to make sure he gets his free souvenir, a business card holder made out of decorative washi paper and recycled milk carton scraps. Another volunteer calls several stores to help a visitor snare a hard-to-find child-sized blue soccer jersey with Japanese star Hidetoshi Nakata's name and number. "It is very important for our national pride that everything goes smoothly," says 26-year-old Makoto Iwashita, a computer science grad student. Alas, all is not going well. The Japanese are fuming over a ticketing fiasco that has left thousands of seats empty at games advertised as having been sold out. They're angry because they want to go to the games themselves, and because the unfilled seats are an embarrassment to Japan's "can-do" reputation. Everyone from a 20-year-old man who kicked in a ticket office window to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who ordered a Cabinet member to investigate has been demanding something be done to fill up the stadiums. So Japan's organizing committee finally announced it would put thousands more seats up for sale by telephone. Since the problem seems primarily the fault of FIFA and the British agency contracted to distribute tickets, "they should have let Japan handle this," says Adachi. Indeed, when extra tickets went on sale, NTT reported that in the first minute, 2 million calls were made and tickets sold out in 20 minutes. In Japan, some things still work.
South Africa
The slums and townships of Africa are a world away from the high-tech stadiums of Japan and Korea. But passion isn't driven by wealth. In the poor suburbs of Nairobi, Kenya, electronics shops have sold out of $60 black-and-white TVs as football fever takes hold. Kenya has never made the finals, but there are other African teams to cheer. In Johannesburg, the best atmosphere in which to watch the Cup is in Soweto, the sprawling black township that came to symbolize the oppressive apartheid regime. Living standards in Soweto have risen, and most homes now have TVs. But locals like to gather at Wandie's, a pub and restaurant with South African staples like pap (corn flour porridge) and mutton stew. "Stand up for the national anthem," ordered Wandie's owner Wandie Ndala before last weekend's match against Slovenia. A few minutes later the crowed roared as South Africa grabbed the lead. Hotels and restaurants in the white suburbs of Johannesburg lay on special food and events for big rugby and cricket games. But football is still seen as a black game in South Africa; many whites get excited only if England is playing. Still, says Ndala: "We don't look at what type of person is playing. We're just proud to be at the World Cup with whatever combination works best. This country starts with the idea of coming together. So let's come together."
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