The Cup That Grips The World

In Berlin the next morning, 340 miles away, there seemed a good chance the play would pick up with the appearance of West Germany, the host team and Cup favorite. Berlin is a real metropolis, not a soulless agglomeration of high-rise office blocks like Frankfurt. Perspiring, happy Berliners were eating smoking-hot roast pork slices at street stalls on the Kurf�rstendamm, the city's Fifth Avenue, even though the temperature was rising into the mid-80s. And though they cost $6 apiece, enough of them had bought the black, red and gold flags of the Bundesrepublik to turn the streets into a carnival. Some fans, being cynical city types, were enjoying a sly giggle at the news that the president of the German Soccer Association, Hermann G�smann, had flown into Tempelhof Airport to see the game, had been besieged by autograph hunters, had signed for 10 minutes and then looked down to find that his attach� case, which contained his ticket for the game, had been stolen. (Later in the day, in Istanbul, the wife and daughter of the Turkish referee, Dogan Babacan, slipped into a neighbor's house to watch him on TV. While there their own house was burgled.)

Even if they had to keep their hands on their wallets, the crowd flooding to Olympia Stadium was in a holiday mood. Those without tickets who did not want to go home could watch the game on television in shopwindows. One store had 19 color sets going, and anticipated 200 viewers on the sidewalk. Not that tickets for the 88,000-seat stadium were scarce. A Canadian would-be scalper who had bought $3,000 worth, expecting to clean up, was left without takers, as were two Danes who were trying to sell 70 tickets at face value plus, they said, 10% tax. (A total of 83,000 fans attended, so that the television inroad was comparatively slight.)

At the ground itself, a male choir, backed by an oompah band, boomed out somewhat unmelodiously over the loudspeakers. The song, Fussball ist unser Leben, recorded by the West German team, is a hit in Germany. It is a big, brassy number that almost blotted out every other sound.

But not quite. In the vast, oddly religious-looking stadium that Hitler built for the 1936 Olympics, a wedge of students, Chilean exiles and young Germans were demonstrating against events that took place in another stadium in Santiago in 1973. " Chile, si, Junta, no," they chanted, and then in German, "Tod dem Faschismus,"—death to fascism. Hundreds of police encircled them, the crowd whistled and jeered and the loudspeaker appealed, "Don't get provoked by incidents which lie outside the field of sport."

When the game began there were plenty of incidents on the field to provoke German fans. The West German team started out massively and majestically, and after 16 minutes it scored the first goal of the tournament, Uli Hoeness, the young blond star, slipping the ball to Paul Breitner, who had come up from the defense. Breitner sprinted down the left of the field, cut in and let go a rising shot from 30 yards out into the corner of the net.

It looked as if there would be more goals, but the Chileans fell back to defend in depth, tackling brutally to stop the Germans, conceding foul after foul until, most harshly of all, Carlos Caszely brought down Berti Vogts with a slashing kick in the thigh and was sent off the field. The Germans continued to play sweet football, but the crowd's mood had soured. It was enraged with the Chileans and also, mysteriously, with the home side, reserving its jeers mainly for Wolfgang Overath from Cologne, a veteran of the World Cups of 1966 and 1970, and for the captain of the team, the elegant Franz Beckenbauer. This seemed totally illogical unless one understands that Beckenbauer and four other star players are from the Bayern Munich Club—which is in Bavaria. Berlin is in Prussia. It was interstate jealousy that caused the ill-tempered display, even though West Germany had won 1-0.

The next day arrived the jolly folk who brightened the whole mood of the World Cup. They came flooding east along the Autobahn to Hanover in cars and buses, 40,000 of them. Never before had Holland made much impact on the Cup, but now it had the two Johans, Cruyff and Neeskens, and a new, brilliant player whom hardly anyone had heard of, 22-year-old Johnny Rep from the Ajax Club. It also had the happiest, most outgoing and plain nicest football fans in the world, broad-faced, smiling, decked out in anything orange they could find. "Johan Cruyff, superstar!" they sang out in English, "How many goals have you scored so far?" They yelled "Hoep, Holland, hoep!" and they delightedly pointed out to each other snippets from the German papers that described their smooth-running team as "The Clockwork Orange" and called Cruyff "the Nureyev of soccer." They flooded through the Altstadt, the old part of Hanover, and chomped bratwurst and swilled beer with never a cross word. In the stadium they stood out as great swaths of orange. What they saw was Uruguay playing more viciously than Chile did, chopping down Neeskens again and again. But they stayed with their orange-shirted heroes chanting "Haul-and! Haul-and!" while Cruyff made fools of the ugly-tackling Uruguayans and Rep banged in two fine goals. Whereupon it was time to head for the Altstadt again to deal with more steins, while country boys from the farming north of Holland did stomping, clapping, broad-bottomed clog dances on the sidewalks. "Met de handjes, klap, klap, klap! Met de voetjes, stap, stop, stap!" they sang, spinning themselves around. Late that night, if you saw a big Dutchman swaying toward you down a dark, narrow, cobbled street, you could be sure that all he wanted to do was shake your hand. Whereupon you could say, "Hoep Holland!" to him just for the pleasure of seeing his face split in an immense grin.

There had been no real surprises in the other stadiums around Germany. Poland's 3-2 win over Argentina was hard fought, the best game of the tournament to that point. The Australians, inevitably called the Socceroos, gallantly lost to East Germany. Italy, a finalist in 1970, had trouble beating Haiti, as its famous goalkeeper, Dino Zoff, let in a goal for the first time in 13 international games before his side came back to win 3-1. And Scotland, not much favored itself, huffed and puffed before overcoming the totally inexperienced Za�re side 2-0, which did not augur well for Scotland's chances in its next game against Brazil at Frankfurt. Nevertheless, the team was loyally followed by 15,000 fans, most of the hard, wee, football-mad Celtic and Ranger supporters from the slums of Glasgow.

Scot football followers are not the kind you would invite to your grandmother's golden wedding anniversary party. "I've no eaten since last Thursday," one declared outside Frankfurt stadium. "It took me three years to save up �500 to come here, and I've lost ma job in Glasgow post office, but I dinna care. My heart's right out here"—he held his hand out a foot from his chest. "We're magic! Scotland's magic!" He swirled his tartan cape around him and sang, lovingly, "Six foot two! Eyes of blue! Big Jim Holton's watching you!"

Big Jim, one of Scotland's defensemen, had been training with the team 24 hours earlier in a yelling, swearing practice game that most of the pundits present thought too strenuous a workout so close to the match. But Billy Bremner, slight, freckled, the original wee hard man who is Scotland's captain, laughed that off. "I'm all bubbles, man," he said. "I'm bubbling over. We've nothing to lose. It's Brazil that has to worry."