Germans hit streets in joy after victory over Argentina

BERLIN - Germans ran onto the streets in joy and congratulated total strangers after watching their team roll over a miserable Argentina 4-0 in the World Cup football here Saturday.

Others formed up motorcades to tour their cities, waving flags from car windows, honking horns and cheering themselves hoarse.

In a park near the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin, where the game was transmitted on a giant open-air TV screen, 300,000 fans, many in skimpy clothing or bare from the waist up, erupted in a shouting frenzy, waving a sea of arms, at each German goal.

“We’re hugging everyone we see,” said one fan.

With temperatures hitting 37 degrees Celsius, hundreds of thousands more watched the victory on big public television screens in most other main German towns, but millions more preferred the shade of bars and homes.

Fierce summer thunderstorms erupted over Bonn and a few other western towns soon after the game began, giving the German triumph an apocalyptic flavour.

A few hardy fans stayed outside to the last, drenched by rain and transfixed by joy at their heroes.

With one thunderclap, all power failed in a Cologne suburb, forcing desperate fans to sit in their cars and listen to the match commentary.

Owners of an echoing cave at Balve in the west offered 1,000 fans shelter in the cool from the storms in front of a 24-square-metre TV screen underground. The din as the crowd cheered the goals was terrifying.

Gerold Vogel, an orderly, put in earplugs. “I love football, but I don’t want to go deaf,” he said with a grin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who watched the game in the stadium in South Africa, joined the live television coverage afterwards, telling Germans at home she was thrilled.

“It was just overwhelming. It’s such a young team, but how calm and mature they were when they exploited each chance at goal,” she said. “The German team has achieved something incredible.”

The heat meant many of the public screenings were less well attended than during Germany’s 4-1 win over England six days earlier.

In the eastern German industrial city of Bitterfeld, which was thunderstorm-free, fire crews sprayed water on fans to cool them.

“The trouble is, there’s no shade in the viewing areas,” said Katja Raab, organiser of a screening in the eastern city of Halle.

German media praised their team’s performance, which sees them reaching the semi-final and a possible encounter with European champions Spain, who were due to meet Parguay later Saturday.

“We’re so proud of you,” said the online edition of the mass-circulation newspaper Bild.

Sports magazine Kicker wrote: “Klose shatters die Albiceleste,” a reference to striker Miroslav Klose’s two goals against the blue-and- white shirted Argentine team.