Shanie is a friend who I met on the Parma-l list. She was lucky enough to attend the quarter final game between Italy and Romania and wrote to the Euro 2000 list about her experiences. THANKS, Shanie, for allowing me to reproduce it here! It'll give people a taste of what it was like "being there"!!

Hello all!!

I can't get these stuffs out of my mind:

"Italia, e forte, e gli ??..." (my Italian is too bad and I can't spell the
rest of the sentence! :))
"La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la..." (sings/"la"? like the melody of Italian
national anthem!)
"Del Pi-ero, Del Pi-ero..." (obviously the Italians like him very much or
they won't chant his name so often... but I don't like him!)

;))

I'm back from Brussels late last night. I've to struggle to get up and go to
work this morning! It's terrible to stay in trains for more than 9 1/2 hours
with 2 heavy bags with some cans of Belgian beer (! For the Germans won't
sell Belgian beer and I'm afraid that most of the Hongkongese know nothing
about good beer -- we only have those Carlsberg or San Miguel which are
produced in Hong Kong and they're... yuck!) and clothes (! oh I really like
Belgium...) and souvenirs... and I have finished reading the mails from our
Euro 2000 list... the Parma ones will take a long while, I guess.

I'll try to put my "report" here! ;) Okay, it won't be a match report... but
I'd like to say what I saw and experienced from football and fans in these
few days.

In the evening, 21st June
I got on the train in Munich to Brussels. I've missed all the Euro 2000
games on TV on that day! :(

22nd June
2 days before the game! Therefore I hardly saw anything special at that
time. I've done some shoppings in the Euro 2000 official shop though: a hat
with the word "Italia", a keyholder and a pin. There were some people
wearing footy shirts on the streets. They are fans of different teams -- I
even saw a father wearing a French national team shirt while his small son
was having all his Liverpool FC gears (including his socks!) on. And the
name on his back was Owen.

23rd June
I have spent most of my day in a beautiful city in the north of Belgium,
Brugge. It's great there: fastinating architechtures, friendly
Flemish-speaking Belgians (and lots of tourists!), nice food and... good
atmosphere... oh, I mean the football thing!! It seems that the people in
Brugge like football very much and they do put a lot of efforts to tell
people that they host some of the Euro 2000 games in their city. I believe
that everyone there loves their home team, Brugge (our SuperMario Stanic had
a good time there before), a lot!

I started seeing more policemen walking around Grand Place (the centre of
Brussels). They had already set up the fences around the plaza when I was
back to Brussels in the evening.

24th June
The matchday! I walked around in my Parma shirt with my Parma scarf (!! I
bought two Parma scarfs in Brussels!) on my shoulder some hours before the
game and started seeing a lot of fans at Grand Place. My friend was in her
West Ham gears -- then we knew who was from England!! ;)) We heard something
like "C'mon you 'ammers" almost once every 5 minutes!! I wonder how many
English people have also bought the tickets of this game! And one of the
lads with a big "beer belly" (?) even sang in front of her (obviously
another hammer... or should I say "'ammer"? It seems that none of them cares
about the "h"... ;))...

And, LOTS of policewomen or policemen were there!! The Italian and Romanian
fans were a bit crazy -- but they were only some happy people waiting for
the big party! They sang together and took photos with each other... those
Italian boys were even "clever" enough to ask some female tourists around if
they could speak English in ITALIAN (they just said "inglese"... goodness,
they should learn some more English! ;)).

I decided to go to the stadium earlier... but I couldn't!! When we were
walking to the Centraal Station, we saw a lot of Italian fans standing in
front of the hotel that is opposite to the station. I decided to stay there
for a while and heard how the fans sang (I don't understand much though).
And I wasn't too disappointed -- I saw the team bus!! I hardly saw anything
there though! Most of the Italians are taller than us Hongkongese... and the
fans were so amazed to see me with my Parma scarf! :)) I saw the Maldini
family (does Paolo have a brother or something? The man I saw looks alike
him very much... and his sisters too! And I saw Cesare Maldini -- he stood
exactly in front of me for a while!). When the team bus was about to leave,
I went to the other side of the bus. I first saw Luigi Di Biagio and he was
waving to the fans in the bus. Then, I saw -- FABIO CANNAVARO on the bus!!
:)) He gave the fans a big lovely smile!! I guess I was also a bit mad at
that time: I waved my Parma scarf and hoped that he could see me! ;)) It's
impossible, of course...

The bus had then left and all the fans including us headed to the stadium...
and the metro was full of Italian fans and they started singing and jumping
(!!) and hitting the walls and ceiling of the metro!! One of them just
grasped me and my friend and took a photo... :P There was also a hopeless
German Bielefeld (spellings?) fan in the metro and the others kept on
teasing him about his "very nice" national team (he admitted that Loddar is
too old...)... sadly to say that I had my seat in another part of the
stadium... I was so far away from the Italian fans!!

About the game... I don't think I need to say too much. I didn't find it
good or exciting! :( I feel pity for the Romanians... but why did they play
Andrian Ilie?! :( But the atmosphere was simply great and the fans were
really noisy! There weren't too many Romanian fans but they were good! The
Italian were very noisy! We met lots of English fans again and some
German-speaking fans (they looked like Italians whom I met in Germany and
wore the Italian shirt... but they spoke mostly in German!!)... there were
also a few Dutch and Belgians.

After the game I went back to youth hostel by metro. I thought that I were
in the underground in London (it's full of English-speaking fans...). And
I've thought that "if the England team were here, I could have shouted
'c'mon England' with them during the games..." Sigh!

I saw lots of Italian fans in the city. They drove real fast (ITALIANS!!)
and some of them stood up and half of their bodies were out of the cars...
waving the flags and blowing the horns! :P The Belgian Police had even
re-arranged the bus-routes so that no cars or buses could enter the area in
which the fans celebrated. If someone doesn't like football, there was a
hell... the fans sang loudly, waved the flags and lighted all the
fire-crackers (?) they had...

25th June
I still saw some Italian fans around. Some still kept on singing
"la-la-la-la" on the streets. :) One of them was even on the same train to
Cologne with me... he's the only one who sang "la-la-la-la" loudly on the
platform before the train came! ;)) I'm back to Munich at about 10.30pm.

Anyway, it's great to visit Belgium again. I like their fries and beer very
much! :) The game could be a better one! Yes, the Italian wins... but
they're boring! :(

Cheers,
Shanie