Soccer fever in California - 'Yo dude, is there beer?'

By Barbara Munker Jun 7, 2006, 21:13 GMT

The US World Cup Team pictured during the traing in Hamburg, Germany, Tuesday, 6 June 2006. The team will play its first World Cup 2006 match against the Czech Republik in Gelsenkirchen. EPA/KAY NIETFELD

San Francisco - At 7 a.m., a full two hours before the starting whistle in faraway Munich, Ira Hackett has every expectation of long queues of fans at his San Francisco sports bar - despite the bleary-eyed hour, and the fact the somewhat unfamiliar sport 'soccer' will be on the screens.

'We are going to show every World Cup game live, even if it starts off at 6 a.m.,' confirmed Hackett, a born Californian.

There is a nine hour time difference between Germany and Hackett's Kezar sports bar, one of already more than a few places in San Francisco where true soccer fans can come bright and early to watch World Cup matches as they happen.

'Soccer,' of course, is the U.S. and Canadian name for the sport known elsewhere in the world as football.

Kezar management is expecting hundreds of singing, shouting, whistling (and naturally beer-drinking) soccer fans to gather in the dawn hours, before the establishment's twenty-four big screens. Flags of all the major nations participating in the World Cup fly in front of the building; the German flag cheek-and-jaw with the American stars and stripes.

'It has taken a long, long time, but finally Americans have 'soccer on the brain,'' Hackett said. He described his customers' interest in the World Cup as 'phenomenal'

One of Kezar's competitors, San Francisco's Chieftan sports bar, already has, a full week before the kick off of the first World Cup match, fifty seats inside reserved permanently for soccer fans.

Former Romanian Andrei Markovits, a political scientist and self- described 'soccer historian' at the University of Michigan, called the sight on giant posters of international soccer stars in the windows of a major sports store in San Francisco 'simply fascinating.'

'There was nothing like that here during the last World Cup in 2002,' Markovits said. 'Foreign soccer players as American store decorations - the times are certainly changing.'

Adel Shalbi's corner grocery store is another little bit of America where it's hard to miss signs of soccer fever. Highly- polished wine glasses decorated with soccer emblems line the shelves, and above them hangs a giant video screen.

Shalbi, now an American citizen but born in Egypt, can watch games in English, Spanish, or Arabic with a flick of his remote control.

'I will open my store up at six in the morning, and any one is welcome to come in,' he tells his customers.

Even Hollywood is getting in on soccer. The world-famous Grauman's Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles is offering World Cup matches on its own big screens. A hulking billboard out front promises fans a sporting experience 'Just like in a German stadium,' with a 'World Cup breakfast' to boot.

Despite heightened interest the sport of soccer runs a fourth place in the U.S., behind American football, baseball, and basketball. Still, there are close to twenty million Americans regularly following soccer, sports analysts said.

That's a big enough audience for two major American television companies, ESPN and ABC, to have announced plans to broadcast every single World Cap match live. Not so long ago soccer in the U.S. was a sport few Americans had heard of and the media simply ignored, veteran fans said.

'In the 1990s we (soccer fans) were just marginalised,' said investment banker, Edward Woodham, 36.

Still, for Woodham like for most fans, television doesn't compare to the real thing - by the weekend he intends to be on a jet en route to Dusselforf with four World Cup tickets in his pocket.

Jens-Peter Jungclaussen, a native of Flensburg Germany living in the U.S., on the other hand has no intention of quitting California's sunny climate for a trip back home to watch World Cup matches.

He has a different goal: Gathering 10,000 soccer fans in front of four-metre-tall television screen erected in a park overlooking the San Francisco skyline, to watch the World Cup final, for free.

'In the most European state of the U.S., it has to be the case that you can take the slogan of the World Cup ('A Time to Make Friends) at its word,' he said. He had no worries about drawing a crowd.

'Americans like big events,' Jungclaussen explained. 'They are coming to see what all the excitement is about, what's going on, even when they have very little understanding about the game.'

Jungclaussen, 36, already has permission from park management for the event, and to make the event reality only lacks a few sponsors. Beer unfortunately won't be part of the party, however, as San Francisco civic code forbids consumption of any alcohol in the park, including beer.

'But Americans know how to have a good time anyway,' Jungclaussen said.

The San Francisco branch of the Goethe Institute, a German government agency, will also be tuned in, with plans open its doors at nine each morning for San Franciscans to come inside and watch World Cup matches. Will the Institute - an organization with the mission of promoting German culture worldwide - be serving beer to American World Cup fans?

'If the Germans win, then yes,' smiled Ingrid Eggers, the Institute's area coordinator.