EURO 2004 - not in our homes
Three of us are sitting over our usual weekend breakfast - cup of Nes cafe, fresh baguette, lots and lots of butter and jam, choice of strawberry or raspberry. On a good morning, feta and tomatoes accompany our usual set up. And no, we are not fat, even though, as I put a chunk of butter over my baguette, I wonder about our breakfast habits that are far from light and healthy.
As the matter of fact, our breakfast is so heavy that we sometimes end up having to lay down to digest.
Our kitchen conversation is as usual - somehow it always takes off to either being funny or controversial. I don’t think we ever had a serious conversation around that table.
And today, being that it is Euro 2004, we turn to the biggest highlight of the championship - Greek’s win over France, 1:0. Need we say that Greece is our favorite?
Looking at the statistics of the two teams, (France being the champions and playing Greece only a couple of times, one of the games back in 1958 where they killed Greece 7:1), we were sure our favorites will suffer a blow but remained optimistic knowing that King Otto, their newly found German couch, probably installed some discipline and organization among our fellow Balkan people. Let me tell you, discipline and organization are not our strengths.
Greeks celebrated all night. We, on the other hand, sitting here in NYC, didn’t even watch the game.
We, living in the melting pot of the planet Earth, do not have an option of watching EURO 2004 on TV.
EURO 2004 hasn’t made it yet to the US.
The TV stations do not show the game. In order to watch you have to search for rare pubs that play it. Once you find the pub, you have to track there and pay $20 to get in to watch it.
Not our idea of fun.
Sitting around our kitchen table, we conclude that we are outsiders to the excitement swiping across Europe. Really, we are just far away observers. Not able to feel the game.
Unhappy with our conclusion, we leave the kitchen table to start our weekend.
Comments
International crew currently located at the west coast of Canada is lucky to have most of the games live at TSN, which is Canada’s main sport channel. It is brilliant that this time around our Pacific Standard Time perfectly aligned football matches with our lunch breaks, making the cheerful crowd stronger.
After finding out that even the McDonalds in food courts are showing the football, one could think of football as the new hockey ;)
Today on UEFA Euro 2004 News
Greece’s surprise run to the semi-finals of UEFA EURO 2004™ under the guidance of Otto Rehhagel has prompted calls to make the German coach a Greek citizen.
"I propose we make him a Greek, because he has a Greek soul," Georgios Voulgarakis, public order minister, said. "He has done very good work. If he wants to become Greek, he will."