Fußball. Its fun to say but not to watch. During the recent Europameisterschaf, held in Poland and the Ukraine, I got a taste of the extent of Europe's addiction to this sport. Television sets and screens appeared in every bar and most restaurants across Berlin. Crowds would huddle around them, eyes glued to the screen, reacting to every close call like it was truly a matter of life and death. I don't understand this fervour, but I do wonder what all these fans would be doing without Fußball. Where would they be directing all this energy? My general attitude to sport is one of personal disinterest but acknowledgement of its necessity. Fight it out on the football field, not the battle field. It might be a simplistic view, but sport creates a common world for nations with often very different cultures and/or political tensions, i.e. Greece and Germany. They might disagree on everything else, but they are all convinced of the absolute importance of football. While I still can't sit through a match, I did enjoy the general atmosphere of excitement and watching the dramatic reactions of people so absorbed in a game with a ball and two nets.
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