WORLD CUP / USA 1994 : A Tale of Two Countries : Swedish, Cameroonian Fans Are Worlds Apart in Pregame Partying

Those Swedes. They do know how to party.

They started early Sunday in Manhattan Beach, well before stroke of noon, drinking beer and painting their faces and getting ready for the big one at the Rose Bowl. Some of the dozen or so Swedes at the posh beach house had been on a binge since the middle of the week, powering down 30 brews a day in preparation for this game of games, the country’s opening round in the World Cup.

The morning could not have been more different, however, for another clutch of fans--of the opponents, Cameroon. They woke in dormitory surroundings at the University of Southern California and were shuttled to the Hereafter Non-Alcoholic Supper Club in the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles. There they ate bread and butter and doughnuts and drank tea laced with lots of sugar.

And then the Cameroonians wondered aloud how they were going to get to Pasadena because the bus ride they had counted on had fallen through.

This is the story of fans and their day at the World Cup, the most-watched sporting event on the planet. It is one of those days when national pride struts its stuff, when the home flag is waved and hung from trees and held out the window during the drive to the stadium. It is a time when chests puff out and everyday caution is abandoned. It is the reason that soccer sometimes turns ugly.

One of the Swedes who came here this week was Michael Christiansen, 23, of Lund. When he had been an exchange student in Los Angeles, Christiansen stayed with Greg and Ellen Hull of Manhattan Beach, he an accountant, she a teacher. So it was that he went there again for the World Cup, along with two friends, Rikard Persson and Fredrik Johansson.

“We’ve been partying nonstop since we got here,” Johansson said early Sunday afternoon. “We just want to show our support for the Swedish national team. This is like a monthlong Super Bowl and we wanted to be here for it.”

They closed several bars in the days leading up to the match and had gotten only a few hours of sleep the night before. When they awoke Sunday, bleary-eyed, they began pulling out fake plastic swords, Viking hats and inflatable headgear with the word Sweden emblazoned on them. Then they commenced to drink more beer.

The city had not been so kind to the fans of Cameroon, the African nation that stunned the world of soccer four years ago by reaching the quarterfinals in the World Cup. There had been the problem with the exhibit at Leimert Park, where the Cameroonians had hoped to sell artifacts from their homeland to help offset the expenses of the trip. But they had not gotten the right permits and found themselves mired in the red tape of bureaucracy.

But they too had had some fun the night before the game, many of them going to a party at a South-Central social club.

“We were up late last night, dancing and singing,” said Alexandre Oho Bambe, a leader of the Cameroonian delegation, who wore blue jeans, a Cameroon World Cup T-shirt and goatskin slippers.

At the Hereafter Non-Alcoholic Supper Club, three rented vans pulled up to carry the fans to the Rose Bowl. They piled in, 14 or more to each car, along with several private cars that formed the Cameroonian convoy.

And at Manhattan Beach, the Swedes did their own squeezing as well, filling two Ford Broncos with 14 people.

“It’s time for the Viking war!” Christian exclaimed as they were getting ready to leave. Then they all gave a fierce growl as the Bronco eased onto the road.

“You’ve got to experience the World Cup,” said one driver, Steve Compas. “Just to see the fans.”

As they drove along, a caravan of cars and vans filled with Cameroonians passed them, their national flag waving from a window.

“Get them, get them!” the Swedes yelled in mock fierceness. Then they settled back to sing songs from the Ventures and occasionally break into dog howls. When they arrived at the Rose Bowl, they started looking for the Swedish tailgate party.

For their part, the Cameroonians took a crazy-quilt path on and off freeways that took more than an hour to bring them to Pasadena.

“Like they say in Cameroon, it isn’t easy, but they get it done,” sighed a cook from the Hereafter, Myron McDowell, who had joined the Cameroonians.

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After purchasing enough pennants to cut the dealer’s per-unit price from $3 to $2, the Cameroonians strolled the last few blocks to the Bowl, passing a crowd of 150 Swedes who had hoisted their flag in a eucalyptus tree.

“5-0!” yelled one blond-haired, twentyish Swede.

“Yes, in favor of Cameroon!” replied Amos Bello, 47, who was garbed in the native robe of a tribal chief and a multicolored knit hat in the afternoon sun.

Bello, a train manager for the Cameroon Port Authority, had been unhappy with the difficult logistics of the morning but was smiling when he finally entered the Rose Bowl. “We made it here,” he said.

At the gate, the group met up with dozens of other Cameroon natives, including Solomon Tataw, the tribal chief of the village of Mamnyu.

Tataw, who wore a ceremonial feathered hat, a camera and what appeared to be a Turkish towel around his neck, said he is enjoying his stay in Southern California.

“If I were still a young man, I wouldn’t like to go back home,” said the chief, who left his three wives and seven children back in Cameroon.

Once inside, the Cameroonians were greeted with loud support from Egyptian and Scottish soccer fans. They took snapshots of each other with the smoggy San Gabriel Mountains in the background.

About 45 minutes later, the Hereafter fans were supplemented by boisterous Cameroonian students from American colleges--as well as employees of a Cameroonian cement company--who hoisted a flag and a large sign in Cameroonian colors saying “It’s Milla Time!”--referring not to beer but to soccer star Roger Milla.

At game time, the paint was melting from the Swedes’ faces in the Pasadena sunshine.

During the tailgate party, they played soccer, listened to a tape of surfer music and occasionally broke into the ever-popular dog howls. The fare had been reduced to hot dogs and German potato salad because they had eaten all the Swedish food earlier in the day.

Finally, the Swedes began to march to the Rose Bowl. One carried a banner of a Swedish beer label. Another had a flag draped over his back. They passed other clusters of Swedes and exchanged high-fives.

Inside the stadium, travel booking agent Rudi Schreiner sat in the midst of the chanting Cameroonians. He had bought a ticket from a scalper outside the stadium and the only hat he had been able to buy was one designating him as a fan of the Swedish team. He looked very much out of place.

“I guess I bought the wrong hat,” he said.

Over the next two hours, each group got to celebrate twice as their teams fought to a 2-2 tie. But the festive mood dimmed at that result.

“We are disappointed,” said Cameroonian Noel Seaha. “For us it is a defeat. If we won, we would be drinking and dancing until tomorrow. Now we will sleep and wait for Brazil.”

“We are a better team than them,” echoed Christiansen of the Swedes. “We should have won.”

Then the Swedes set off to find a bar.