The giant 2006 FIFA World Cup globe of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate.
BERLIN, (Reuters):
AFTER MONTHS of intense preparation, a fair amount of national soul-searching and near-fanatical scrutiny of the home team, the 18th soccer World Cup kicks off this morning - not a day too soon for hosts Germany.
The country is buzzing on the eve of a month-long soccer extravaganza that includes 32 teams and 64 matches in 12 stadiums from Hamburg in the north to Munich in the south.
About 250,000 fans from Poland to Paraguay converged on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Wednesday night to launch a tournament-long street party - just a taste of the festivities that cities across Germany have lined up.
The orb on the German capital's TV tower has been transformed into a massive pink-and-silver soccer ball.
MASSIVE SCREENS
On the lawn in front of the Reichstag parliament building a mini-replica of Berlin's Olympic Stadium has risen up, where 8,600 fans can watch their teams face off on massive screens.
There is no mistaking it -
|the World Cup is here and the excitement in Germany is palpable.
"Together with all our guests, we want to celebrate an exciting, fascinating and fun football party," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a FIFA congress in Munich on Wednesday.
Colouring the mounting sense of anticipation, however, is a peculiarly German sort of anxiety.
Will Germany prove a good host? Will the police be able to keep the peace? Can coach Juergen Klinsmann's side make the country proud? If they do just how loudly can Germans allow themselves to celebrate? - these are just some of the questions Germans are agonising over as the tournament kicks off.
The slogan German organisers have adopted for the World Cup is "A Time to Make Friends".
INTENSE DEBATE
Just how friendly the tournament will prove is a subject of intense debate. Tourism officials have launched a campaign to encourage locals to be nice to the estimated 1.5 million foreign fans that are expected in Germany.
But a survey by pollsters Forsa yesterday showed nearly two in three Germans see a high risk of hooligan violence at the tournament and one in three fear a terrorist attack.
Concerns are also rife that black tourists could be targets for attacks in the depressed former communist east, where far-right groups are active.
Any such violence, officials fear, would tarnish Germany's image on the world stage and deepen lingering divisions between the east and west at a time when the country should be coming together to rally behind their team.
The team itself is also a source of anxiety for Germans.
Yesterday it emerged that Michael Ballack, the German captain whose goalscoring touch and passing skills are crucial to the team's hopes of progressing in the tournament, will miss the opening match against Costa Rica in Munich today.
LATEST SETBACK
The injury to its best player is the latest setback for a team that has faced intense scrutiny for months.
Perhaps no one in Germany will be happier to hear the referee's first whistle than Klinsmann, who has been savaged in the press and by national soccer icon Franz Beckenbauer for his tactics, new-age training techniques and decision to commute from his home in southern California.
And what if the German team surprises the sceptics and makes it to the final in Berlin on July 9th?
Germans are likely to feel tortured about that too. The absence of German flags in cities and towns across the country this week is a reminder that many Germans remain uncomfortable with displays of nationalistic fervour more than 60 years after the Nazi defeat in World War Two.
TODAY'S GAMES
GROUP A:
Germany vs Costa Rica
Poland vs Ecuador
