WORLD VIEWS
FRANCE
From La Marseillaise:
“The World Cup slogan, ‘The beauty of a world at play,’ which was displayed at the 10 sites of the competition, was shot to pieces at Marseille after two days of violence. . . . If the immense majority of the English visitors behaved like supporters happy merely to chant songs of praise for their favorite team, a minority--less than a thousand--seemed to play in an inferior division: that in which football is nothing but a pretext.”
GERMANY
From Berlin centrist daily Der Tagesspiegel:
“Germany starts with a dull 2-0 victory into the World Cup--U.S.A. turns out weak. It was not a glittering match, as expected. The German soccer stars obviously told themselves: ‘Let’s get this compulsory exercise done and win.’ After some slack the victory with goals by Moeller and Klinsmann was never endangered. But they just won against a U.S. team that probably has to travel home after the first round. For them, it will be a weak comfort that they were able to defy the Germans for some minutes--nothing more and nothing less.”
HONG KONG
From Rob Hughes’ column in the International Herald Tribune on the English-Tunisian brawl:
“What is it with the English? I’m one of them, but I’m ashamed. . . . A country which won wars but lost an empire has abandoned its sense of right and wrong.”
International Herald Tribune:
Cab driver Jean-Paul Garcia in Toulouse, on the England-Colombia match to be played there Saturday: “I won’t be working that night. I don’t want my car to be damaged.”
POLAND
From Zycie in Warsaw:
“The German players once again had proved the truth of a famous saying: ‘There are two teams playing football, each team has 11 players, they run, they strike, but in the end Germany always wins.’
“The American team was in a very combative mood before the game. The players were saying that winning with Germany for them is just peanuts. Well, it turned out that bragging didn’t help Americans much--the Germans won easily.”
MEXICO
From La Jornada:
“Argentina, which appeared tied to the tedious scorecard, did not seem able to play comfortably, while persistent and compulsive Japan managed to make them lose their tempers. During these moments Maradona’s spirit floated through French air, but it didn’t reach the Argentine players. This spirit, touched by the demons of soccer with multiple talents, was all movement, both frivolous and tender with the ball. He was brilliant and quick in the definition of his play despite the fact he didn’t reason. Soccer was intuitive with him, and went beyond consciousness.”
JAPAN
From Japan Times:
“Although Japan made an unsuccessful World Cup debut Sunday in a 1-0 loss to two-time champion Argentina, its supporters appeared to win the cheering battle at Toulouse Municipal Stadium.
“Japanese fans accounted for more than 60% of the 37,000 spectators at the stadium, and developed highly organized cheering.”
Correspondents Helene Elliott in France, Christian Retzlaff in Berlin, Ela Kasprzycka in Warsaw, Maggie Farley in Hong Kong, Brinley Bruton in Mexico City and Makiko Inoue in Tokyo contributed to this report.
