Better late than never!

I know that it is some days ago now and it is maybe not so funny and has no actuality anymore, but anyway, I've planed it and my friends in Dresden worked very hard for it, so now I have to do it and post it. It is about the Champions league final, and how people experienced it in the pub: "Schnurz" in Dresden Neustadt, and in the pub: The Duke of York" in Sai Kung - Hong Kong. Not only the distance of more than 12 thousand kilometers apart those two pubs, also a time difference of 6 hours lay in between. These pictures is taken almost simultaniously in the two locations. So what in Dresden starts at 8:45 pm Wednesday night, start here at 2:45 am on Thursday morning. But the tension was the same and in the recent years I've never missed the CL Final and wouldn't miss it this time either, so I really sat my alarm clock to wake me up at 2:15 am, got out of my bed and went about 1 mile to "The Duke of York" in Sai Kung to watch that match together with a lot of english expats and local Chinese. The previous year I've watch the games in Dresden and met after work with guys like these. Traktor captain Mark and Traktor Presidente Paolo in Dresden.
I was a bit anxious it could turn out to be a boring tactical game like the FA Cup final in 2007 where the same two teams met, and every body knows that when a match involves that blue team from London, is it almost certain that it is going to be a boring game as that team play just sooo boring football.Team Londonski supporters slept already at the beginning of the match.
Normally The Duke of York isn't open at that time of the night, but Ricky - the man behind the bar- made an exception this night because as a Man Utd supporter he was curious as well. When I arrived the place was surprisingly full with both Expats and local Chinese waiting for the game to start. One of my friends -Martin, a BIG Man Utd. supporter was of course already there biting the last millimeters of his nails together with Heineken bottle beer. Thats the guy with the number 18 om his shirt. I was not sure who the rest of the guests was going to support, but I've seen some of them to Premiere league games before and then they were supporting those from London, and lots of the Chinese support that team, as they have no real football culture and then just supports those who gets the most exposure in the media, and mostly that's the teams with the most money.
The game started and the atmosphere got tense. Man Utd were the obvious better team in the beginning and then at 9:13 pm Ronaldo jumps up and hit a cross from Wes Brown school like with his head -Toor in Dresden - and at 3:13 am in Sai Kung and Martin could leave the rest of the nails on his fingers and start dancing.The first half turned out to be a humiliation of the London team until just before the break, where what shouldn't have happened - happened: 1 - 1 and the tension started all over and the rest of the match was really too exiting, but because no more goals was scored, also the Champions league final 2008 had to be decided on penalty shoot out.Martin can't watch; John Terry approaches the penalty spot -is it over?In Dresden they have even time and the nerve to order another beer.
In Portugal 2004 another English captain also slipped away and missed an important penalty, so maybe they should ban all captains to take penalties in important games. Never the less, it ended like it should according to Martin and myself. The probably best team so far in 2008 won the Champions League, and that was also a victory for attractive offensive football, and thank god for that.At 6 in the morning I got home and to be honest; I've never stayed out so late to watch a football game in Television -I think.