On the Karplatz in Düsseldorf, an Italian looks like he is juggling a foam ball with which he challenges any fan who wears a shirt that is not blue. A few meters further away, the waiters also balance their trays between the high wooden tables where the mugs of beer, the sausages and the prominent German meatballs reveal a numerous and playful international competition that is settled between drinks and chants of identity animation.
Based on demand and ticket sales, UEFA claims that the European Championship is on track to beat the record of 2,427,303 fans who attended the 2016 edition of the tournament. Even before the 24-team field was complete, demand for tickets had already reached 50 million. UEFA sold 2.3 million tickets before the tournament began. It then put a first wave of 93,147 on sale, which will increase as the qualifiers begin today with Italy-Switzerland (18:00, TVE) and Germany-Denmark (21:00, TVE).
After the multi-venue Euro 2021 that expanded the tournament to the four corners of the continent, with pandemic restrictions still in place in most of the host countries. After the imposture that filled many of the stands of Qatar’s luxurious World Cup stadiums with fake fans, football fans are reliving the traditional purism of their homeland at this Euro. modus vivendi. In some ways, and despite the inflationary drawbacks that raise the cost of accommodation and food, it can be said that fans have recovered football in a major competition.
In Germany, in the heart of old Europe stressed by the war in Ukraine, the Israeli destruction of Gaza, Islamic terrorism and the rise of the extreme right, the social dimension of football has generated the particular recreational oasis that always emerged for fans in major national team competitions. The fans fill the stadiums without needing to be subsidized by the organizing committee, the central train stations are hives of football nomads who jump from city to city following their teams and the old town centers of the host cities become melting pots of nationalities that chrome the terraces and sidewalks of Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dortmund, Cologne, Leipzig and Frankfurt.
The proliferation of Scottish kilts is one of the most distinctive and picturesque features of the landscape of this European Championship. On the outskirts of Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion, Tommy, a forty-something Scot, seems to have pinkened his cheeks and calves. “We come from Edinburgh, we are a group of eight who have chosen Dortmund because there are other venues nearby. We go to the Scotland matches and buy tickets for others that are played here and in the surrounding area. We will be there until the quarter-finals, it is our holiday,” he says while soothing his throat with a can of beer taken from a country fridge.
Supermarkets are another very popular meeting point for the purchase of food and drinks for less well-off fans. A third of the first beer consumed in any of the crowded ones fanzone or in the kiosks under the stadiums it can go up to nine euros because you pay three euros for the glass that are refundable with its return. Hotels are registering high occupancy despite the fact that prices have doubled and tripled in many establishments. The campsites installed in the forests on the outskirts of the host cities have also considerably increased their users.
Without the distance and high cost of traveling to Qatar and without the need to travel the continent from end to end as in Euro 2021, fans enjoy this gastro-party and cultural tourism, for whoever pleases, that occurs in a Euro Cup or a World Cup. “We have come to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our farm and we are delighted. People seem to want to enjoy themselves, we go out almost every night and we haven’t seen a fight. Let’s hope that the ultras don’t screw it up,” wishes David, a journalist from Burgos. So far, security, with a high number of plainclothes police infiltrated among the fans, has avoided scenes of violence beyond some fights that have been immediately put down. In this regard, for the moment, fans have also recovered football.
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