At short notice, we were offered tickets for the Germany v Argentina game at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. How could we resist?! We were in Dortmund at the time, so a 6-hour return trip on the fabulous German ICE trains was necessary, but boy was it worth it.
Lee and Keir couldn't come, so I set off with Suzanne and Jeremy. We had a spare ticket, so Jeremy called an old friend in Berlin, Jan, and made his year - "how would you like a ticket for the biggest game in the World Cup?"...
The 76,000 seat Berlin Olympiastadion itself is amazing and has an incredible history, being built for the 1936 Olympics. It is positively Roman in it's look and is really imposing. It's quite unlike any stadium we've seen on the trip - externally it looks like a cross between the Colosseum of Rome and the Circus Maximus.
Being oval, it affords a great view, pretty much from wherever you sit. We were sitting near the cut-out section (which is in line with the Glockenturm). Here's the view we had.
We simply couldn't believe how much the German's dressed up for this game - in fact it became an ongoing theme throughout the tournament. The German people really took the tournament to their hearts and we were quite overwhelmed by the number of people who would come to us in tears telling us that for the first time they were proud to be German.
The game went on to penalties, which Germany won. The atmosphere was quite incredible. We had an Argentinian couple sitting next to us, and I really felt for them.
As Lee wasn't with us, we asked Jan to do our post-match report. Here is it is, as he touches on some of the points I mention above and I thought it worth sharing.
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