Sweden Unter Alles

My friend Gene invited me to join him and his friend Nina in watching a contest between the Swedish Bikini Team and the German Girdle Squad in Roppongi, Tokyo’s foreigner ghetto.

I was disappointed when it turned out to be a soccer game.

Nina’s blonde enthusiasm quickly cheered me. Swedish to the core, she took us to Legends Sports Bar, which was standing room only two hours before the midnight match. The Swedes came correct in blue-and-yellow jerseys, Viking hats and flags worn as capes. One flag was as large as my bedroom and the Swedes held it over their part of the club like a tent.

There’s 1,000 Swedes in Japan and 5,000 Germans, one told me. But one Swede is enough for five Germans. Skol!

An hour before match time a group of young Germans tried to stake out a spot between the Swedes and the bar and had to be edged out. One wore the German flag over his shoulders and I was close enough to catch sparks when a woman wearing a Swedish flag unwittingly backed into him. There was talk of burning the defiled flags, but tempers cooled and the two eventually posed for a photo together.

The Swedes were quite open-minded. They deliberated about how to translate their fight songs so the Germans could understand them.

Why don’t we just sing Sweden Uber Alles? one suggested.

No, said another. You’ve seen Fawlty Towers, right? Don’t mention the war…

They taught me their songs and translated them for me. The most important chant translates as “Put in the goal!” Genius. We began singing the fight songs in earnest half an hour before the match. There were only 40 or 50 of us, but we shook the walls. Thor would have been proud. The Legends Sports Bar belonged to us. All of Tokyo could not be far behind.

Or so we thought. The German fans turned out to be as efficient as their team, saving their voices for the first, heart-stabbing goal, when they erupted. Suddenly we realized that everyone else in the club was German. No fight songs, few team colors and little spirit, but the Germans had us five to one.

At that moment, the Swedes realized what they were up against. Another goal at 12 minutes. Then Lucic’s bullshit red card. (Did you register the undisguised schadenfreude on the referee’s face when he pulled the card? Or the congratulatory pat on the back he received from a German player? Here in Tokyo, we call that “a little home cooking.”)

Down 2-0 with 10 players, my Swedish compatriots changed their game plan. They surged forward and made the space in front of the serving area a wall of blue and yellow, making sure that not a single German was able to buy a beer for the rest of the match.
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This post comes to us from Craig Coley, currently in Japan heading up No Mas's Tokyo office. Craig is a longtime journalist and editor of note who's pounded the beat in both Brooklyn and Tacoma, so you know he's paid his dues. One time the motherfucker rode the subway for almost two days, went to every stop in NYC. And it wasn't even on a bet - he was just lost. Check out his freakydeeky website, georginabush.com, and check out Craig's dispatches from the Far East right here at No Mas.