4-0

"So we'll see you there tomorrow, George?"
"Yes," I said. "I'll be there around 6:15 after work. You'll be outside then?"
"Yes, if the weather is okay."

I walked down Franziskanerstrasse in the evening sunshine and took the S-Bahn to Marienplatz and then the U3 to Sendlinger Tor after having left the office at precisely six o'clock. The Sendlinger Tor square was filled with people standing and sitting, gathered around several large TVs. It was 6:15 PM. The tables and people were arranged in four clusters around four TVs in front of Kennedy's and it took me two passes before I noticed Tom waving in my direction. I joined him and Jack at the table where they had been saving me a seat.
"You're lucky you arrived now," Tom said. "I had to fight for your seat."

When I arrived at a quarter past six it was already 1-0 for Germany on a penalty kick by Müller. I ordered a beer from the waiter who was responsible for our cluster. Tom and Jack held up their glasses to show that they wanted refills as well. It was warm out and when the beer arrived it was cold and the glass was frosty. We clinked our glasses and said "prost" and the cold beer woke me up.

There was a girl at our table that had taken an empty seat before I arrived and Jack was trying to talk to her. Tom was turned to me, away from the TV, explaining why the Pepe red card was legitimate when Germany scored again in the thirty-second minute. The crowd cheered but no one yelled "Goal!", to my disappointment. With no strong attachment to either team I usually choose to go against the crowd, so 2-0 and a red card already was unfortunate for Portugal and for me.

Just before half time the waiter came by again and I asked for "ein Helles" and some snacks. Müller then scored again in extra time to make it 3-0 with just half of the game having been played. I was tired from work, and from the weekend, and I tuned out Jack's attempts with the girl. Tom made conversation about work and I watched the people around us eating fried foods and drinking beer and waiting for the start of the second half.

An Englishman at our table said "you're cheering for Portugal to give the US a better chance." I said no. When he spoke German I could understand him better than when he spoke English.
"Who does the US play tonight?" he asked.
"Who cares?" I responded, having previously explained my non-Americanism.
Our food and our beers arrived and we ate breaded, fried jalapeños filled with pink cheese and washed it down with more cold beer.

The crowd was jubilant in the second half. The game was a foregone conclusion and now the people were simply there to enjoy themselves. I took a picture to try to capture the excitement of the moment, but it only looked like a normal street café of people enjoying a summer evening. The closest subject in the picture was a man who had made the "peace" sign. I deleted the photo.

The girls at the table beside ours were drinking pink cocktails from shot glasses. They smoked thin, all-white cigarettes and were the only ones not watching the TVs at all. A fat man at a table behind us who had made the peace sign in my picture ate nachos with melted cheese and smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes. In the seventy-eighth minute Germany scored again to make the blowout 4-0.