Euro 2012

One of the first things I discovered when I decided to move to Poland was that in June 2012, Poland would co-host Euro 2012 (along with Ukraine).  For those of you who don't know, Euro 2012 is the soccer tournament held every 4 years for the European Championship.  This is almost as big as the World Cup, but maybe even more-so for some people, because it brings bragging rights for some European country over each of their rivals. Poland's team normally isn't among the top in Europe, but because they were hosting, they automatically qualified as one of the 16 teams.  Spoiler alert: If you didn't notice, with Spain's victory again this year, they have now won the last 2 Euro championships and the last World Cup.  And they did it this time without my favorite player, David Villa, who was out with an injury.  I guess it's time to give another country a chance next time guys. 

Euro 2012

Fans gathered in the shadow of the Palace of Culture

The tickets to the matches went on sale via a lottery in March 2011 (15 months in advance), and during the first round of ticket sales, nobody that I know won any tickets.  Mike and Patty, Geoff, Brimmer, and a few others all had the idea of visiting me during this time.  In the end only Mike and Patty could come (combined nicely with our trip to Croatia), as well as cousin Karen and her new husband Daniel (as part of their honeymoon...yes a honeymoon that included a stop in Poland).  Geoff decided to go to school, and Brimmer went and had a baby, so they ruined everything and stayed home.

As the event got closer, more tickets went on-sale on the website.  Luckily I found some tickets to the opening match and jumped on them.  Mike was basically willing to pay anything for them, for the experience, as long as I didn't tell Patty how much they were.  The tickets were pretty expensive, and I haven't even paid that much for an American football game in my life (or any other sport for that matter...until the upcoming Olympics in August).  Funny to think that we would spend that much for tickets to a match for a sport we never watch live, to support a country that isn't our own. But I don't regret it one bit. Partly because Chen ended up paying for my ticket, which is ridiculous and I need to pay him back somehow. I ended up getting 4 tickets, as I was sure we could find someone else to join.  And sure enough, another friend in Warsaw, Andy, was happy to pick up the 4th.

Poland's bracket included Greece (opening match), Czech, and coincidentally (or not), their life-long arch rival Russia.  Leading up to the matches you could feel a level of excitement and buzz around the city that I hadn't felt before here.  Places were open later, new bars and restaurants popped up, everything was getting cleaned up, with more English language available.  Infrastructure improved (a little), and the city made a nice transformation because of it.  And of course, the National Stadium in Warsaw was built.

Before, during and after the tournament, there were many more tourists than usual.  Scores of Russians and Greeks and Spaniards and English gathered all over the city showing their national pride through their favorite players' jerseys and draping flags over their shoulders.  It was really great to see so many countries represented.  It was all very cordial and friendly...Russians would pose for pictures with Poles, Greeks with Italians, and the English with French (ok, maybe not English with French).

Mermaids around the city paid tribute to all participating countries (the refs don't call hand-ball on mermaids)

But even more impressive was the pride from the Polish people.  Everyone was in jerseys, with Polish scarves around their necks, even on hot Summer days.  Flags, signs, scarves and jerseys hung in windows, from cars, and bikes. Faces were painted with red and white, and everyone seemed so happy and excited.  This was especially attractive on the female fans, if I'm allowed to say so.  I'm a sucker for female sports fans (fans who are females, not necessarily fans of female sports...but not that I have anything against female sports, of course).  People chanted Polska songs as they walked down the street (this could be annoying when I was trying to sleep).  Even when Poland wasn't playing, people would dress like this.  And even after Poland was eliminated, people would dress like this.  The Polish pride was very inspiring.  Except when they got really drunk, then it became annoying.

On the day of the opening match, we went down to the fan zone to check out the atmosphere before the game.  Well, first we ate pho, because after 2 weeks of seafood in Croatia, we wanted a little variety (and Mike and Patty need their Asian food fix).  The fan zone included several giant TVs, a small section of bleacher seats, booths to buy Euro 2012 memorabilia, some interactive games, kielbasa stands, beer booths, and of course McDonald's.  The McDonald's was built in the middle of the fan zone just for Euro.  The fan zone was fairly empty when we first arrived, with a scorching sun that had us looking for a spot in the shade.  Then, almost instantly, it started pouring rain.  There was no shelter, so we just accepted our fate of wet socks and underwear for the rest of the day. After about 30 minutes of misery, the rain stopped and suddenly the place was packed. Supposedly the fan zone can fit close to 100,000 people, and we could barely move.  So we headed over to the stadium to make sure we caught the opening ceremonies.

We're crazy fans!

Not so crazy fans after the storm

In front of the new National Stadium, the sun came back out

It took almost an hour to finally get to our seat, even though it should only take 30+ minutes to walk there.  At the stadium there was only 1 entrance, on the opposite side of the stadium from the main street.  This was completely puzzling to me.  There were stairs and gates all over the stadium, which made it seem possible to walk in from any side.  But for some reason they only let us in through one of them.  Many people were getting upset with this ridiculous plan (including me), but in the end we got in just in time for the opening.

The opening ceremonies were quite fun, then all of a sudden the game started.  I haven't been to many professional soccer games in my life, so it's always a surprise when they start.  There is ceremonial first pitch, raising of the 12th man flag, mascots running around the field getting the crowd fired up, or any other dilly dallying like in baseball or football. They just start, the clock starts ticking, and after 90 minutes (and a halftime), it's over.  There are no commercial breaks (i.e. chances to go pee), and you can't take your eyes off the field or you might miss the only goal of the game (or someone doing a dramatic flop).

It took a bit of time, but we finally learned some of the chants.  Mostly people just did "Polska! (clap clap clap), Polska! (clap clap clap)" which we could manage, but there were some other cheers I didn't fully understand (although after a month of hearing chants in the street, I have them all memorized).

You have to hold your scarf like this, if you want to be cool

Poland dominated at first (they started all 3 of their games very strong).  I started thinking that it would be an easy game for them to win.  Poland's first goal was incredibly exciting.  The stadium erupted like nothing I've ever heard before.  We all bought scarves and we were jumping around waving them furiously.  There was a massive celebration, but then it all ended before we had a chance to soak it in.  Because of the lack of a commercial break, an extra point, fireworks show, cheerleaders, etc., there wasn't much time to celebrate, and the game started again right away.  I wanted to celebrate more!  Then Greece came back and controlled most of the second half.  They ended up tying 1-1, but only thanks to the Polish back-up goalie making a beautiful save on a penalty kick, after the starting goalie was given a red card for taking out a Greek player in the box.  The tie was satisfying, but we (Poland, duh) had our chances to win.  We just didn't have any cold-blooded goal scorers that countries like Germany, Spain, Portugal and England have.

The crowd crossing the bridge back to the city from the stadium

Karen and Daniel were in town for the second game, against Russia.  The media turned it into some political affair, saying Poland needed to win this battle to remember the fight of 1920 and to make up for all the "losses" to Russia in the past.  Thousands of Russians peacefully marched on the street to the stadium earlier in the day and some Poles took exception to that (mostly because of the media build up). There were a few fights, injuries and arrests.  We didn't see anything bad happen, but I'm sure it got very heated out there in some parts, but I also heard that most of the fighting was actually Pole on Pole.  I was getting word from the US and UK that they heard of riots in the streets, asking me to be careful, but I'm sure this was an example of the media blowing it way out of proportion.

The Russia match was on a Tuesday, so we had a WITC training run that night.  Karen and Daniel came with us to the hill run (I'm sure they loved running up and down hills with strangers on their honeymoon), and afterwards we went to large outdoor bar called Lolek. The bar was super packed (but peaceful), some people sat on the ground, while we stood and ate and drank.  At half time a family of Vietnamese people were getting ready to leave their table.  Some people looked ready to lurk and grab the table from them, but Karen used her Asian-ness so people thought she was part of the family sitting there.  She sneakily sat down with the family, so when they left, the table was ours!  Poland played very well in this game, but in the end, it was another 1-1 tie.  We walked back through the Center, and it was so chaotic...people everywhere, broken bottles everywhere, glass in the bus stops smashed, trash cans knocked over, drunk people stumbling around, it looked like a scene from an apocalyptic zombie movie.  As we got onto Nowy Swiat, there were more people walking around on a Tuesday night at midnight than there usually are on busy Saturday afternoons.  Cops were packed together on each block ready to spring to action, looking like gladiators in their full body armor and shields.  Apparently there were 7,000 cops deployed on the streets that night.  Luckily they weren't really needed.

We look so Polish!

For Poland's third game, against Czech, Juan and I watched in a party on top of the Palace of Culture.  We got invited to the party by Mark, and it was something different to do rather than watch in some normal bar.  The fun part about it is that we were sitting directly above the fan zone, avoiding the crowd.  Poland lost this game, and we didn't feel like staying at the party, but it was a nice variety to watching games. It was pretty crowded by the time we got there, so we sat on some steps to watch on one of the many flatscreen TVs.  Apparently even steps have reservations because I got yelled at by a Polish girl who said she was there earlier and I had to move for her.  I choose not to fight it, but I really wish she would at least be more polite about how she yelled at me.  At least her friend was nice.

Those little ants are actually the 100,000 fans in the fan zone

Poland was knocked out of the tournament, but even so, the rest of Euro 2012 was a lot of fun.  Friends would gather each night to watch the games...in bars, at people's homes, in the fan zone, etc.  It was very tiring because I never got a good night's rest!  But it only happens once every 4 years, and it's not too often that it happens in your back yard.  Even when the games were in the other 3 Polish host cities (Gdansk, Poznan, or Wroclaw) or the 4 Ukrainian ones, there was still a huge energy in Warsaw.  The streets and bars were packed constantly and everyone was in good spirits (especially when Italy beat Germany in the semi-finals).  If you were a bar and wanted any business on a game night, you better have outdoor seating with flat screen TVs, because that's what everyone wanted, no matter who was playing.  It was fun while it lasted, but to be honest, I was looking forward to the streets quieting down to "normal" levels once again.

With all this soccer action, it got me thinking...  How did soccer become so popular around the world, but not in the US? Is it because we don't have the attention span for it? Or we need more stimulation like cheerleaders, advertisements, music, PA announcements, and more scoring?  Or just because we're bad at it?  So what's the most exciting live team sporting event to watch (consistently, for the entire game)?

Baseball? - There's lots of down time and not much 'action', but that makes it a very social game for spectators
Football? - Intense action but only for a few seconds at a time. There's a lot of scoring so its more exciting, but it takes 3 hours for 1 hour of game time (and only 15 minutes of actual action).  Oh, and there's cheerleaders.
Hockey - Like soccer, it has constant action but lack of scoring can be frustrating.  And who need 2 half-times?
Basketball - Constant action and scoring during play, but also lots of stoppage and breaks, and players don't really try until the 4th quarter.
Volleyball? Tennis? Golf? Boxing? Bowling?  What else is more consistently exciting?

Even though I played soccer for more years than any other sport, I wouldn't say it's the best sport to watch.  But after 3 weeks of Euro, I definitely came to appreciate it more.  And I definitely came to appreciate Poland's preparedness for the historic event.  All in all I think everyone had a great time and the country will benefit greatly from the how well they handled it.

Now for a few unanswered questions:
- Why does Italy wear blue, when their flag has no blue in it (I was able to answer this about Netherlands and Orange, but not about Italy...)?
- Could I pull off the Balotelli haircut?
- Who noticed Wayne Rooney's new hair transplant?
- How do they track how many kilometers each player runs during the game?
- Why do Polish people call the fan zone the "fun zone"?
- When will they start using some more advanced goal-line technology to tell if a ball crosses the goal line?
- Will players ever stop flopping and rolling around in pain like their leg has been cut off, when they are tapped softly from behind?
- Last but not least, who's coming to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil with me???