Soccer fans at Legends Sports Pub in Waikiki stayed glued to the TV as England played Portugal in the European Championship quarterfinals. Tim Collins, left, and Alan Dyer react as England scores a last-minute goal to put the game into overtime.
The international popularity
of soccer packs sports bar Legends
during Euro 2004 tourney
On a recent Monday morning, just after the break of dawn, a small battalion of Danes showed up at my door draped in red and white, beer in hand, determined to conquer a continent. Only minutes removed from wiping the crust from my eyes, I found myself playing host to a group of foreign soccer fanatics in my living room, sharing gasps, involuntary outbursts and a chilled six-pack of Carlsberg beer.
I recently discovered common ground with these Hawaii Pacific University students through our love of the world's most popular sport, and invited them into my home for Denmark's opening contest in the eminent European Championship against the glamorous, talent-laden Italian national team. They were only too happy to take me up on my offer.
Held once every four summers, the European Championship -- "The Euros," for short -- pits 16 of the region's most accomplished national teams against one another over three weeks, for continental bragging rights. Because of the high caliber of competition, the tournament is considered one of the most important and esteemed in the sport, second perhaps only to the World Cup.
Portugal fan Vini Santos cheered Portugal's victory while England fans sat shocked.
Euro 2004, which began June 12 and ends July 4, is televised live from Portugal and shown in Hawaii no later than 8:45 a.m. While a handful of matches have been broadcast locally on Fox Sports World (Oceanic digital 230), Legends Sports Pub in Waikiki is the only venue in the Aloha State to carry every tournament game as it happens.What proprietor John Harrison has learned over the years, which other Honolulu establishments have yet to discover, is that with a little vision and foresight, international soccer can be a lucrative proposition for a sports bar. In fact, he says, soccer has been his second-biggest draw, next to NFL football.
"We've gone after the international market for a number of years now," says Harrison, who established the cozy 50-seat taproom on Nahua Street in 1993. "I've actually had to turn people away for some games because it's so popular."
According to Harrison, Irish satellite service Setanta, which owns the worldwide rights to Euro 2004, asks a fee of "several thousands" for the privilege of showing all 31 tournament games and insists every participating venue charge a fee at the door to level the playing field among bars of varying sizes and resources. In March, Harrison offered Setanta a reduced payment that would allow him to halve the customary fee to $10 from $20. "There was a certain amount I could afford and that I know I could make a return on," he said.
After initially refusing the bid, Setanta relented just days before the tournament began and gave Harrison the go-ahead.
Soccer fans who arrived late couldn't get into the standing room only crowd at Legends Sports Pub in Waikiki last Thursday and had to watch the screen from outside.
THE MOVE SEEMS to have paid off for Legends. After sending out tournament schedules to a number of hotels in hopes of attracting foreign nationals and visiting soccerphiles, many of the featured games, particularly those involving Europe's traditional powerhouses, have filled the bar to capacity.Whenever two games are played concurrently, Legends, which boasts eight television screens, is divided down the middle, with two simultaneous games entertaining four groups of boisterous supporters. Such was the case last Tuesday when the rivalrous Denmark-Sweden match coincided with a crucial clash between Italy and Bulgaria.
Seated amid the throngs of viewers packed into the pub were HPU students Jens Andersen, Sumee Mikkelsen and Annika Akerblom, who convened at the Waikiki watering hole at 8 a.m. to secure a good table. Though all are acquainted, Andersen and Mikkelsen, who are Danish, put aside their friendship with Swedish-born Akerblom for 90 minutes as one of the most celebrated rivalries in European sport played itself out at Estadio do Bessa Seculo XXI in Porto.
In the 27th minute of the contentious battle, Danish striker Jon Dahl Tomasson volleyed a top corner rocket from 25 yards out to record the game's first score, eliciting an eruption from the Danish contingent on hand, who broke into a rollicking version of "Vi Sejler Op Ad Aaen," a popular Danish song of celebration. Italian and Bulgarian supporters quickly swiveled in their seats to assess the fuss, while Akerblom and her fellow Swedes pounded their tables and uttered several choice curses, in both English and Swedish.
Retribution came soon, however. Early into the second half, an aggressive save by Danish goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen sent Sweden's Henrik Larsson sprawling to the ground, granting the Swedes a vital penalty kick. With no trouble, Larsson blasted the ball into the back of the net to tie the game. "Thank God!" whooped Akerblom.
When the showdown finally ended in a 2-2 draw, Akerblom, Mikkelsen and Andersen attempted to decipher the long and complicated relationship between the two sides for me. "It's kind of like a rivalry where we love to hate each other, but only during the game," explained Andersen.
"It's like 'I hate you during the game,'" expressed Mikkelsen. "But as soon as the game is over ..."
"Afterward, it's 'Let's go out, have a beer and forget everything,'" added Andersen.
"It's like a sister-and-brother relationship," ventured Akerblom. "I think because we're so close together as countries, with the languages and everything, that in a way we still stick together after it's over."
THE TYPECASTING of soccer strictly as a game for foreigners, however, is seen as rather naive and shortsighted by its vocal proponents in this country. With the return of the United States Adult Soccer Association's National Veterans Cup tournament to the Waipio Soccer Complex last week, congregations of amateur players from around the country stopped in at Legends on their days off to support the event, including Tom Nicol, of Georgia, a participant in the men's over-40 bracket, and his coach, Doug McMillan, a former U.S. national team member best known for capturing the 1974 North American Soccer League Rookie of the Year award. Both vouch for soccer's expanding popularity stateside and say the time is nigh for the Beautiful Game to take its place among the top-drawing sports in America.
"I started out playing all the traditional American sports and thought, 'Well, I'm not going to grow up to be 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds,'" Nicol said. "So soccer became my sport. That's the beauty of it. It's a game for all people of all ages, from all backgrounds, and it keeps growing."
McMillan points to the rise in quality of the U.S. national team, currently ranked ninth by FIFA, the governing body of world soccer -- above perennial juggernauts England and Italy -- as a significant indicator of where soccer is headed in these parts.
"It's just a shame that Americans don't get into football," says the Scottish-born McMillan, using the more popular term for the world game. "Way back, I remember the USA would get beaten badly by Poland or Italy or even Bermuda, and now America is ranked higher than these teams. I think it's just a matter of time before America wins the World Cup, and once that happens, you're going to see an even bigger explosion with soccer here. I've got money on that."
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