American girl revises her definition of "football"

I've been meaning to write this for days now... The World Cup is incredible! We went to watch the opening game with a crowd of 40 000 last Friday at the fan park set up at the Olympiazentrum (where the Olympics were held in '72). What is really cool here is that nearly every person I saw on Friday was celebrating not just a local team, but their country as well. It was rather interesting. In the States, we frequently see people sporting colors for a favorite team, but it's usually about the specific team, not the area or city the team represents. Maybe the closest we get to the kind of spirit I saw here is at college games, but even that is not quite the same. I don't know, but I think we might be missing out on something really great by not taking up pro-soccer back home with more vigor.