Taking To The Streets

Last night, Greece beat France, the defending champion, in the quarterfinals of the Euro Cup 1-0. Prior to this year, Greece had never even won a game in any Euro Cup competition. Although Greeks love soccer, their teams aren't usually all that good. They're certainly no Real Madrid or Manchester United, and they don't have the likes of a Beckham or Ronaldo. They've even been known to consistently lose to the USA. Gasp.

So last night for Greece was like Christmas (or Easter, since that's really the big holiday around here and does involve a rather huge miracle.) From 9:45pm until about 11:30pm, the entire country was glued to the TV. About 15 minutes into the second half, Greece scored on a beautiful cross/header, and I swear in my living room I could hear the whole country screaming. Okay, maybe that was just Despina, but she was doing a fine job representing. For the next 30 minutes, the Greek team protected their lead, while every Greek in the nation prayed to God, Mary, and any saint they could think of. It worked, because Greece won, and the entire country celebrated.

We had post-game plans to go to a friend's going-away party, so we had to go down to Kiffisia, the main road through our end of town, to catch a cab. You'd have thought that Greece had just been liberated from the Nazis. It was like it must have been when the American troops paraded through the Arch de Triomphe in Paris. The road was jammed with people in cars and on motorbikes, all hanging out of their cars, waving Greek flags, blowing their horns, and singing the National Anthem. People were lighting flares and setting off fireworks. Everyone had their windows down and were high-fiving the people in the cars next to them. Nobody was a stranger. The whole country was united. Like the Vodafone billboard of the soccer team had been saying for weeks leading up to the Cup: "They are not 11. They are 11 million."

When we left the party at 3am, we sat in front of the Hilton hotel for a while and just watched the people still streaming past with their flags and songs. It was neat to be a part of it. For a minute, I wanted to be a Greek. I think I was jealous that there's nothing that can unite the USA like this. We're too big and too diverse. We have had more than our share of victories throughout history, so something like this wouldn't be the cause of massive celebration. Not that I'd want to change those things. But I sure wouldn't mind having one night where the whole country put aside its differences and took to the streets to celebrate such a pure and uncontroversial victory.