World Cup Mania!

When I lived in America, I had never heard of the World Cup. Strange, seeing as how I lived in Spain for 5 months or so. Americans don't really seem to love their soccer. Ok, that's a generalization. Americans living in South Bend, Indiana don't really seem to love their soccer. Everyone has a high school team. But those are nowhere near as popular as the American football teams (heretofore known as "fake football").

People watch the SuperBowl like it's their job. With Notre Dame being a big source of the economic structure in South Bend, college football is also huge.

But soccer? Nope. There isn't even a blip on the radar.

I'll be honest. When excitement about the World Cup 2006 started rumbling around Korea, I was left in the dark. Apparently, the 2002 World Cup was held in Seoul and Korea went on to be the champions. [Editors note: another testament to how ignorant I am about World Cup soccer, Korea didn't even WIN the championship in 2002. They got to what...the quarterfinals? Semifinals? Thanks, Paul.] I own a "Be The Reds" shirt, but only because it struck me as funny that a democratic country would be promoting Communism, especially with the whole North Korea/Kim Jong Il thing looming as a problem. Apparently though, Korea promotes its soccer team as the Red Devils, so I was mistaken when I chuckled and shelled out the $10.

I didn't even know America HAD a national soccer team. Let alone that they were ranked 5th.

Yes, my friends. Seoul has a major case of World Cup fever. Nearly all restaurants have banners advertising a chance to view the games in their establishment (based on my powers of deduction). Kids come into school every day with some form of Korean paraphernalia (face paint, flags drawn on their hands, hats, shirts, shorts, notebooks, etc., etc., etc.). Buildings have huge advertisements including pictures of players and of course ever-present is "Dae Han Min Guk!" which is the formal name for the Republic of Korea.

Tuesday night Korea played Togo and our school had a party to watch. My friends and I ducked out about 5 minutes into the game to go celebrate in a different way. There is a big park between Sunae (where I live) and Seohyeon. They had a huge screen set up and thousands of people showed up to watch. Never have I cared about soccer more. You can't help it...the excitement seems to spread by osmosis. Here are some pictures, taken by Scott.

We are so excited.

Fireworks/sparklers EVERYWHERE. This nice young gentleman gave me a sparkler to play with.

This is after Korea won 2-1.

Yay. We won.

Afterwards we went into Seohyeon. I cannot tell you how many pictures my friends and I are in because we are foreigners clearly supporting Korea, with our devils' horns and red t-shirts. We were famous, if only for 15 minutes and only in Seohyeon.

Hundreds of thousands more gathered in front of City Hall in Seoul. We were going to go for Monday's game but unfortunately because of the stupid time difference between Germany and Korea, the game doesn't start until 4am. Some of us have to work the next day. Stupid Germany.