They Play With Their Hearts

If Travel is does one thing, it slaps you in the face and says “look at how big this world is, and see how little you know about it, and the insignificance of you and everything that you know”.

But as the shock subsides, Travel calms you with a bit of salve, softening it’s voice and pointing out how although the world is vast, the people everywhere are, well, people - they just have their little twists on how things are seen and done, and you have a familiar feeling when Travel’s comforting voice says, “See? Same same, but different!”

Travel was with us as we sat in a café in Heraklion (capital of Crete) watching Germany play Argentina in the Football World Cup. The best source of entertainment wasn’t watching the game - it was watching the people watching the game.

Tables full of Argentineans had blue and white scarves, flags, and shirts in their hands, and at the slightest sign that the ball might be within range of the goal, the blue and white would start to wind up. The people would inch closer to the edges of their seats, and drinks would be set down in preparation for jumping, singing and dancing.

The Germans (just two of them) wore full Adidas tracksuits, and sat in front of us, stoney faced and rigid, even as their strikers took shots at the Argy goal.

Until the ball hit the back of the net.

The screen disappeared, replaced by two white tracksuits bouncing up and down (retaining their rigidity by moving somehow…mechanically) and shouting “Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya!”, before a quick and awkward ManHug, and a look around to realise that they were surrounded by sulky Latin Americans. Then the stony faces returned until the next goal.

This made me wonder what people thought of our own Kiwi “twist” a couple of days earlier, when Emma and I convinced a bar owner to change one of his five big screen TVs from the Italy/Slovakia game to watch the All Whites play Paraguay. We sat down, sank into our chairs and chilled out with a beer, watching calmly (except for those parts where a seat just doesn’t seem necessary) as our boys did NZ proud. We didn’t sing or dance, had no flags, tshirts or face paint, and didn’t shout “Ya!” at any point. But we did manage to get a table of Americans behind us to root for the Kiwis, which was an achievement since none of them really liked “soccer”.

But it was when we ordered our gyros (think cheap kebab/rolled pita, but Greek) for dinner that night, and the chef found out that we were Kiwis, that we felt like we were a significant part of this big world. He told us that although our team wouldn’t win, that they “play with…so much heart”.

We walked away a little bit taller, feeling same same, but different in a very good way.

[Full credit to the All Whites]