Worldcup in Beirut

My best experience with the worldcup had been in 1998 in Waterloo. The game times were appropriate for watching with others in the graduate house. The diverse backgrounds of the graduate students made this a nice environment. Everyone cheered for his/her own colors and it was nice to be in the midst of this. However, being in Beirut, this took a different turn. The people here embrace the game and cheer for so many teams. It was as if I am within an international audience, and after a team wins you would find people honking horns and waving flags in the streets. The flag people must have made a fortune during this event in Lebanon. I also heard that the largest Brazilian flag outside of Brazil was hanging in Lebanon. It was captivating everyone around, girls and boys, young and old and people where cheering wholeheartedly. Especially amazing was in the Tunisia Spain game, which I watched in the downtown area, people were cheering Tunisia as it was winning, and I thought they will all be behind the team. When Spain scored some people started to cheer, and it grew as Spain took back the game. I was sitting under the Spanish Cultural Centre and they would get out in the balcony and celebrate with each goal. It was amazing. However, the superpowers of soccer remained the most popular (Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, England). I however would have not been surprised to find fans for Togo here.