Goal!

Yesterday was a historic day not just for the USA, but also for Greece. Last night, Greece won the Euro 2004 cup, in what is being called one of the most monumental wins in soccer history. It is being compared to the 1954 victory of Germany over Hungary in the World Cup, an event that is currently the topic of a book and film, "Das Wunder von Bern". Again Greece secured the victory with a header off a corner. They beat the Czech Republic in the same way, and they also beat France with a header, although off a regular cross and not a corner. The unlikely victory (Greece had 100-1 odds going into the games) was decribed on SI.com this way: "No team in a World Cup or previous European Championships have done what Greece have done here.
They have beaten the host nation twice, knocked out the holders (France), beaten the favourites (Czech Republic) and won the tournament with a foreign coach. To add to that, they had never previously won a match in a finals (meaning any international cup)." Pretty impressive, don't you think?

The best part was that Kate and I got to be a part of it. We went downtown to Exarthia, the student area of town, to watch the game in a cafe with a Greek friend and his friends. Lambros got to the cafe at 7pm and got us great seats right in front of the huge television that had been set up. The place was packed, as was every other cafe in the city, and those who hadn't secured a seat were standing a few people deep just to watch. When Greece scored in the 57th minute, the crowd went wild, cheering and hugging everyone in sight. For the rest of the game, everyone was holding their breath. And when it ended, the place erupted. It was the biggest victory many Greeks had ever experienced. We, along with the 3-4 million other people who live in Athens, made our way to Omonia Square, the sight of the huge impromptu victory celebration. Everyone jumped up and down, cheered, sang songs, beat on drums (and pots and pans), hugged everyone in sight, set off fireworks, blew airhorns, and generally partied. I've never seen such a uniformly happy group of people. And although some people climbed up lamp posts and found other perilous perches, the celebrating, although exuberant, was well-behaved. There was no looting, turning over of cars, setting things on fire, or other ridiculous behavior that has been known to punctuate victory celebrations in the US. And all this without even the presence of cops. Yes, Kate and I looked, but we did not see one police officer. In general, surprising, but not really if you know Greece the way we do. We stayed for about an hour after the game, before deciding we'd seen what we came to see. People were still pouring in at this point, and neither of us being huge fans of big crowds, decided we'd get out while we still could. We had to walk about halfway home (over an hour) before we were able to get out of enough traffic to secure a cab. We were in good company though with most of the city out walking or driving the streets. Anyhow, it was a really exciting evening, and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. Plus I got my fireworks! If you want to check it out, google Omonia Square, and try to find some pictures. It was true madness. I know there's one picture on the slideshow accompanying the story on CNN. It's pretty good, but there's really no way to capture what it was really like. You just had to be there. Like I was.