First 16 days of FIFA World Cup 2006

Um - ok. The first 16 days of the FIFA world cup are over, and I had everything to do but blogging. For the first one and a half weeks there were 3 games to be watched per day, and for the past week there was still at least two games per day. Our office is directly opposite the official FIFA Fanfest which is handy when it comes to watching a game within the atmosphere of a big crowd or watching the cool program they booked for the half-time break. My flat is on the other corner of "el barrio" St. Pauli - which is good as you don't miss anything of the game when you're in the bathroom. But this is all-in-all too much to be fit into a regular BLOG entry, so here's the best of the first 16 days of football:

• Tickets:
  No, I didn't have got tickets in before. I applied for them in the "second round". I didn't have enough money when they opened up the official ticket share forum on the net and prices were fair. Now 170 to 1000 EUR - forget about it!
• Being at the Fanfest is not like being at the stadium. But it's better than staying at home.
• Watching at work is still better than watching at home.
• Doing laundry is better than watching Switzerland-Ukraine.
• Being on a festival and shopping at stands and boxes is better than watching England vs. Ecuador.
• Heartbreak Hotel:
  (I didn't know whom to keep my fingers crossed for)
  Sweden vs. England, Spain vs. France, Portugal - Netherlands
• Tor! Goal! But! Gol!
  Nicest ones by now: 2:1 France vs. Spain (Zidane), 1:0 Brasil vs. Ghana (Ronaldo), and any one of Klose's
• I wanted to blog about Klinsmann and Lehmann 3 month prior to the world cup. Now everybody's doing it, and all of "Klinsi's" critics are suddenly praising him. So I stop here and don't even start about it as I don't wanna join in this flummery, I knew it before and now can't prove it.
• Still 70 pics missing in my Panini sticker album.
• First team completed in the Panini album:
  Angola, followed by Ghana
• Holland:
  If Patrick Kluivert would have been nominated, they would have been better of. Sure!
• Top 100 football players and TOP 50 goalposts:
  Omid Nouripour is not only the successor of Joschka Fischer in the German parliament (yes, the former minister of foreign affairs) but he has posted a well-discussable list of the top 100 best football players of all times and top 50 best goal posts in his Blog. Go there and drop a comment, it's easy-understandable even though it's all in German.
• Top 100 football players II
  Yes, there are some missing in Omid's list: Stan Libuda. Willi (Ente) Lippens. Schlangen-Franz Gerber. Ewald Lienen. And with the goal posts: Sepp Maier. Volker Ippig.
• Wanna join the party?
  Come here! The party's great. It's not that cheap (the beer, the food - forget about the tickets, really...) but the weather's mostly gorgeous, at least for Northern Germany. Read about it in The New York Times or Der Spiegel international