God, I love New York!
For today's final match in the Euro Cup 2008 between Germany and Spain, I could have watched it either at Gottscheer Hall in the dissolving German enclave of Ridgewood; or, as I did, with Spaniards at Casa Galicia in Astoria. Boy did I guess right!
Even though Germany was favored to win, there was something drawing me and a friend to crowd in with the Spaniards in the large eating-and-drinking hall of this members-only social club for natives of the northwestern Spanish community of Galicia. I'd been before for other events, but only with my Galician friend and member. But on a day like today, we didn't have to worry; the folks here seemed to be taking a liberal view of who was Galician. (There was a lot of English being spoken among a sea of Spanish.)
I won't pretend to be prepared to describe the match intelligently--I'm a fan of what soccer does to fans more than the sport itself. But I can say that Spain's upset victory (Fernando Torres scored the only goal in the 33rd minute) was made even more special by the fact that they kept the favored Germany from scoring a single goal. By the end of the match, Spain had won their first Euro Cup since 1964--the year of the second European Nations cup and, poetically, the year they hosted the tournament.
I'm sure Gottscheer Hall would have been a great place to watch the match--whether or not Germany won. But it's hard to imagine more heart than in these elated Spaniards.
1 comment:
Awesome! If the bagpipes come out, you know it's a big deal. Meanwhile, we were having a quiet dinner in Rome, not knowing the result. On our way back to the hotel, we saw a group of sad young Germans, which I took as a sign of Spain having won; *then*, confusingly, a group of young Spaniards, also seemingly sad --later I realized they were just exhausted from drinking.
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