World Cup rest days and how to deal with them

By John Bagratuni Jun 29, 2006, 15:28 GMT

Hamburg - After a non-stop barrage of 56 matches since the World Cup started 20 days ago, Germany's football lovers were left empty handed for the first time, with no matches being held on Wednesday and Thursday.

Fortunately for them, psychologists came to the rescue, offering precious advice on what fans should do with their lives during the 48-hour break.

Seemingly unaware that women are nowadays as ardent World Cup fans as men, they dug out the old cliches again.

'Men should think about how best to offer their partners affection and love. Tenderness and a massage can sometimes be more effective than a bunch of flowers,' said psychologist Christoph Kroeger of Braunschweig University.

Germany's Bild tabloid, meanwhile, came up with a list of 33 ideas on what fans could do as they wait for Germany to play Argentina in Friday's quarter-finals.

They included the inevitable 'check whether your wife is still there', 'see daylight again' or 'buy a new TV set'. The paper also suggested a trip to Baden-Baden, where fans could help the wives and girlfriends of England's players carry their shopping bags.

Bild also recommended painting one's car in the colours of the German flag and paying a visit to Holland - Germany's biggest footballing rival - which was eliminated in the Round of 16.

Meanwhile, organizing committee head Franz Beckenbauer used the day off to pat himself and the whole country on the back.

'One shouldn't praise oneself too much. But we really have been good hosts. People from all countries and races are celebrating together. It's fantastic,' Beckenbauer told reporters.

World football supremo Joseph Blatter, who doesn't always see eye- to-eye with Beckenbauer, could only nod in consent this time, announcing in newspaper interviews Thursday that 'this is the best World Cup ever.'

'Never before has a World Cup been so emotional and global,' he said in reference to 11 million people celebrating at the official Fan Fests across Germany and TV audience records broken around the globe.

In this respect, the two-day breather at least allowed fans to have a rest before partying all over again should their better-than- expected national side beat Argentina on Friday afternoon.