World Cup 2006 attendance: 3,353,655
Average attendance per match: 52,401
"Football is the ballet of the masses."
World Cup Germany
Play begins in the Munich semi-final match between France and Portugal.
Fans seemed to collect in a subtly organized fashion, French fans decked out in blue at one corner and the Portuguese in their maroon at the opposite. Scalped ticket prices plummeted after the Germans were knocked out by the Italians in Dortmund the previous evening.
Cologne 7.4.06
The world-famous Dom, or cathedral, in Cologne
looked eery illuminated by the train station lights at 2:30 in the morning after a tedious train ride returning from the football semi-final match in Dortmund.
Bullet trains zip passengers around the country
On track: German trains are a model of efficiency, but they don't necessarily run on time. The train from Frankfurt to Cologne was decidedly behind schedule, and the late-night train from Dortmund to Cologne took a round-about route stopping at every conceivable station while weary soccer fans only wanted the ride to end.
Traveling kids opt to spend precious cash on beer rather than
lodging, littering public spaces after all-night drinking
marathons.
Ragged glory: Lots of young travelers have opted out of even cheap hostel lodging in favor of sleeping and otherwise living in public places. This was readily apparent in Cologne where clots of beer-swilling youths gathered on the lawns around the Cathedral and along the banks of the Rhein river nearby. German maintenance crews, cleaning up these public spaces in the middle of the night, used portable leaf blowers to herd and remove the collected trash that accumulated around the vagrants, no doubt irritating the hell out of those trying to sleep on the lawns.
Many things relate to beer in Germany, even Cologne's
famous cathedral.
Munich 7.6-9.06
With the Germans out of the picture, losing to Italy the previous night, ticket scalpers' prices plummeted, allowing us to see the other semi-final match at the futuristic new stadium in Munich between France and Portugal.
Reassuring voice: The same dulcet woman's voice is heard on trains throughout Germany, calmly explaining what station you are at, what station is next and, when the doors are ready to close, quietly instructing, "einsteigen, bitte."
Fans queued up everywhere to get photos of themselves in front of Munich's strange looking new soccer stadium.
Zinedine Zidane, the 2006 World Cup's most valuable player,
scores on the decisive penalty kick in France's 1-0 win over Portugal.
An ivy-covered building in suburban Munich.
Munich is full of stately old buildings and flower-bracketed statues. And on one weekend in July, it was full of soccer fans from all over the world decked out in suitably silly apparel.
Soccer events took place in impromptu and sometimes odd places, like a Mexican television crew conducting an interview in the middle of Munich's quaint Marienplatz, complete with various props, right.
Hyped: Soccer mania takes odd turns at times. Wandering through Munich's famous Marienplatz, a Disneyland of medieval buildings, tourists paused to gawk instead at a Mexican television crew recording an interview in the middle of the square, complete with props that included a rubber full-head mask.
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