On 14 June in Munich, Germany will host Scotland in the European Football Championship (U€FA €uro^®). You know, the football championship where players play the game with their foots!

For the Americans reading, I call our college football and NFL “American Football”, and what we call soccer there is football to me here, as I never hesitate to affix the ‘American’ adjective upon anything I can, especially since the NFL is growing faster in Germany than any other country in the world! I must constantly remind Germans and Europeans that Americans have done more than popularize hamburgers.

(Which we have! Lots of great burger joints in Munich these days! Freshly baked buns, never frozen beef from ‘happy cows’ from real meadows and they’d never had their horns shorn. Oh, and a couple of Five Guys now sprinkled in for a quick fix!)

However, I have not ‘gone Injun’ like the scene from Kevin Costner’s “Dances with Wolves”. I’m still so American in Munich that people can see me before I’ve turned the corner because they can see my Orlando Magic hat and tennis shoes before my face. I always get asked in shops “Sind Sie Amerikaner?” It must be my Sergeant Schultz German.

“Ja, ja, ich komme aus Kalifornien.”

“Kalifornien? Warum wohnen Sie (Why do you live) hier in Deutschland?”

“Der Regen gefällt mir (The rain please me).”

Cultural difference. When you say to a German you are from somewhere, to them that means you came from there (California) to live here. In America, ‘where you are from’ is your birthplace, your roots that you never forget.

Despite the burger invasion and a properly placed affection for American football, Germany is still very much a real football nation. After the Olympics and World Cup, the U€FA €uro^® is the biggest sports event in Europe every 4 years. Germany is no exception. Some of the fans say that the quality of the U€FA €uro^® is even better than the World Cup because you have fewer Aussies, Kiwis, and Concacaf teams to dilute the solution. It is “the beautiful game” at its most exquisite. Also, the U€FA €uro^® is at its most expensive and corrupt, part and parcel. But I digress.

The rest of Munich’s U€FA €uro^®  schedule has Ukraine on 17 June (a home match for them, nearly 50,000 Ukrainians call Munich home now), Serbia on 26 June versus Slovenia (a home match for Serbia), and Serbia again on 25 June against Denmark. Actually, any match in Europe is a home match for Serbia.

On July 2^nd, Munich has one of the “Sweet Sixteen” matches and a semi-final on July 9^th.

England will be looking for glory and Germany is a joker. Germany could be excellent or atrocious. Nobody knows what’s in store.

As long as the winner isn’t France. They can sometimes be arrogant.

Or Italy. Nor Spain, neither. Italians are the best actors, with more dives than Greg Lougainis. Spain just plays keep away.

Belgium or The Netherlands would be cool, however, they never win trophies despite their talent. Croatia would be interesting if they won. Every tattoo parlor would need pictures of Croatian flags for the boom in business if Croatia were to win.

Some small countries like Slovakia/Slovenia/Albania winning would be a great story. We would all get a free geography lesson.