Germany's national sport! (No, it's not drinking beer while eating a sausage!!!)

I am no sport fanatic, but I do enjoy watching tennis matches on the television when there is a tournament. I also get very enthusiastic during soccer matches, especially when France is in the final of the FIFA World Cup (we should have won that game!). If soccer where human, it would be a god here in Germany. Fussball is Germany's national sport and people here take it very seriously. Every child plays soccer and almost every grownup is a hard core fan of one team or another. Soccer is played at thousands of amateur clubs, and with more than 6.3 million members, the "Deutsche Fussballbund" (DFB; German Football Federation) is by far the largest sports organization in Germany. Every week during the regular season, hundreds of thousands of people attend the professional games while thousands more watch or actively take part in matches between local amateur clubs (Info provided by: http://www.germany.info/relaunch/culture/life/sports.html). Like the saying goes "When in Berlin, so see a soccer match!".
On Saturday, Berlin's team, Hertha BSC, was playing in the Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion) built for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games and site of the FIFA World Cup's final match. Hertha BSC was playing against Energie Cottbus, the last ranking team in the league at the moment!
The stadium itself is very impressive and resemble Rome's Colosseum. The stadium can seat 76 ooo people and it makes it Germany's second largest stadium.
The stadium was not at full capacity on Saturday, but there was a decent number of fans, and the atmosphere was very energized.
The game was pretty exciting, and although Energie Cottbus played very well, the game ended in a tie 0-0, which is perhaps better, because there were some sketchy characters in the Cottbus section and if their team at lost, I am not sure what they would have done. But as the whole of Berlin's police force was there, I was not fearful for my life!!!

This is a little video to show you how dedicated the Cottbus' fans were. The video is actually 14 seconds long, but I guess all of it could not be uploaded to the site.

The stadium seen from the outside.

A random German man selling random German beer outside of the stadium. Only here in Germany!

The colours of Hertha BSC.

The stadium from the inside- the game had not started yet.

Germans (and at least one Canadian!) watching a Fussball match.

A panoramic view of the stadium- a bit small, but you get the picture (no pun intended!).

German hoodlums!

No fear, Berlin's police is here!