From the morning you could see everyone and everything sporting the German tricolour, kids wearing Die Mannschaft kits. One German friend booked us a table in a restaurant-cum-biergarten where we had a prime view of the huge screen. ‘Please get there early!’ he had said. And sure enough, he was already there protecting our group’s table when I reached.
Under the awning of the beautiful gravel courtyard, the other tables behind us quickly filled up. When Germans want to feel good they eat the abominable currywurst. Sure enough, two people at our table order a plate each.
Sampling it off their plates, I concede to myself that this isn’t the worst currywurst I’ve had. The French fries are blamelessly good, helpless accomplices in a crime not of their making. The slices of sausage a.k.a. wurst also bear a smaller share of the culpability. What are they to do if some cook – after West Berlin chef Herta Heuwer invented the dish in 1949 – wants to inundate them in a ‘curry sose,’ a kind of red-brown ooze that usually tastes of tomato, onions and uncooked industrial garam masala?
The sauce here was better than at other places. The masala had been cooked in, and the sausages were of good quality.
The game began, the football expectedly of very high quality. The crowd in the garden was partisan, but not crudely so. Every now and then when a Spaniard did something good, they went, ‘Bbboaff!’ as if to say, ‘Look at the power of what we are up against!’The wine at our table went down nicely, surrounded by a forest of rising and falling beer glasses. As the second half began, I needed to explore the facilities. So, I went inside the almost empty restaurant. The place was a typical Berlin hybrid. There was a very German menu with the beer-garden vibe outside. The inside was an old-style jazz and blues venue, the walls covered with photos and posters of great musicians. A small stage had a couple of guys warming up, tuning their guitars and testing their drums, oblivious to the commentary and chatter coming through the open doors. I head back outside when there’s a huge crash of sound. ‘How’d he do that with the drums?’ I think. But then my brain powers back up.
‘Bbooaafff!’ ‘Aber Nein!’ ‘Scheisse!’ ‘Olmo! Nein!’ I get to the table through a blast of upbeat despondency that only German fans can produce when their team goes one down with 39 minutes still to play. Dani Olmo has scored the opener for Spain and the Germans respond like an exploded ball-bearing.
The pressure builds, the educated, reasonably middle-class viewers loosen their throats, glasses shatter, the commentators suddenly start inserting English phrases in their quickened commentary: ‘Very quick and clever, genau!’ ‘Ja, safety first, ja’ and pointing out details like ‘Joselu… in Stuttgart geboren’.
As regular time winded down and defeat became a possibility, the crowd went quiet. We were suddenly watching with an added soundtrack: ‘Baby please don’t go!’ wailed the singer from inside, ‘You know I looove you so!’
It seemed Joshua Kimmich and Florian Wirtz hear the song through the screen and combine to snatch and equalise in the 89th minute.
More wine comes. The garden is now swimming in confidence. But alas, alas and alas. It’s Spain’s Mikel Merino who has the last word, leaping up and spreading into a Spiderman creature before snapping a header into goal.
In different parts of Germany, they may have been smashing chairs into TV screens. But not here. The crowd has a few more beers. Many leave, but a few stay on to watch the next game. Everybody knows Germany will be back in the next tournament, the threat re-doubled.
