Brooklyn World Cup

[In Brooklyn, people react to an intruding Wall Street Journal left outside a brownstone for the morning delivery and look at each other quizzically; despite the gentrification of the King's County, in some parts, that delivery still evokes a shake of the head. ]

I went to watch the soccer game between Germany and Italy. I intuited that they would go overtime and walked into the bar as the regular time wound down. The beer in the bar was as warm as the British bitters and the air conditioning could not keep up with the thronging Brooklynites as the crowd followed the overtime. The spectators were equal parts German and Italian fans, but the German fans won out in cuteness: there were two boys with frizzy hair with black-red-yellow colors on their faces, drinking water from Brooklyn Lager cups. The prominent reaction was one of laughter as players from both sides went down clutching their faces, arms and legs in agony, only to stand up after the referee's call and sprint off. Still, there were whistles, claps, songs and infusion of energy as each fan base willed its team. I thought the Italians were crisper with their passes and sharper with their chances, and if the game had gone to penalty shootouts, I would have given the edge to Italy, notwithstanding its history in penalty shoot outs. Still, this is soccer, and anything can and will happen. It did. Miraculously, Italy broke through, once and then twice in two minutes. Unlike in Germany and probably elsewhere, the crowd did not linger. The bar crowd broke off, having shared moments of some togetherness, same cause or not, and went off to do chores, drink coffee, change for the evening celebrations, whatever. Other bars too emptied, and parts of Brooklyn breathed the muggy air outside, like many places around the world, some languid, some boisterous.