World Cup 2022 in Qatar: Public viewing in Advent is so depressing

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Place of contemplation: Christmas market in Dresden

Photo: Matthias Rietschel / dpa

A Christmas market in downtown Hamburg, a self-experiment: Can two mediocre things - the football World Cup in Qatar and "vintner's mulled wine" - be combined into something good?

I stand at the mulled wine stand and start the ARD app on my cell phone.

Switzerland versus Brazil, at full volume.

In Qatar it is 25 degrees, slightly cloudy.

Hamburg: four degrees, rain.

Cold water drips down my neck from above.

Shortly before the start of the World Cup, many German Christmas markets refused to broadcast football matches.

No public viewing.

Public drinking only.

It was a gesture of defiance, a contemplative "Fuck you" in the direction of Qatar: We can be happy without football!

Scantily clad women with green and yellow make-up can be seen on my cell phone.

Maybe a cold hallucination.

My toes are freezing.

The fans and players on the screen are as small as ants.

Then Vini Junior shoots to Casemiro, who hits the ball into the net.

1-0 for Brazil.

I yell, "Tor!" A mother yells, "Ben, get out of the rain right now."

If you are alone in the cold, a mug of mulled wine, 0.2 liters, warms you up for about nine minutes.

I stopped that.

Makes about ten mulled wine for 90 minutes plus a half-time break.

The great thing is that if you order ten mulled wine here, you get the eleventh for free and can then vomit yourself in the sustainable wooden toilet next to the church.

Conclusion: Contemplative is not far from being unconscious, football has lost, and mulled wine remains an invention of Satan.