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A Turkish runner carries the Olympic Torch...
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EDITORIAL |
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Just believe in it
The crowd was huge, the passion great and joy unconfined. Most of all it was the joyful outburst of an entire nation.
It wasn't just Athens, Thessaloniki and the other big cities. In villages with as few as 50 or 100 residents, people went onto their balconies and hung out Greek flags, as if someone had given the signal for a great collective celebration. Only at moments of great national feeling has there been such an upsurge of unity and blunting of differences.
It was football and victory, but it wasn't just a football victory. We wanted popular heroes and the football win in Portugal gave them to us. We all saw how the crowd followed the route and surrounded the bus carrying the players. The crowd was all theirs. |
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COMMENTARY |
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Our very own carnival
When the Euro 2004 semifinal between Portugal and the Netherlands began, Portuguese Minister Afonso de Melo turned to the poet Manoel Alegre, his country's deputy Parliament Speaker, and said «Manoel, when this is over, I will feel a great emptiness inside me.» Millions of Europeans, particularly Greeks, must be feeling the same after Sunday's final. They experienced their own, special carnival for a whole month - when enthusiasm outpointed monotony and a game defeated constraint.
Our neighborhood is one of the most impersonal in the city, with foreigners (Albanians, Poles, Africans, Pakistanis) equalling Greeks in number, isolated in the manner of extended families who get together only at weddings and funerals, when great pain or joy brings out the gold hidden inside us. |
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