BEIRUT: Lebanon’s capital Beirut is awash with flags. But instead of the usual political colors, they’re the bunting of World Cup competitors like Brazil and Germany being flown by local mega-fans.
Lebanon’s national team didn’t qualify for the event starting Thursday, and the tiny nation has no great sporting track record.
But its citizens display a near-fanatical enthusiasm for chosen proxy nations, mainly countries that tend to do well in the World Cup and host large Lebanese populations, draping cars, homes and businesses with “their” country’s colors.
“I just love Germany. I love the way they play the game,” says 19-year-old Elias Nohra.
He spent $50 having a Germany flag sticker affixed to the roof of his car.
“Money well-spent,” he says with a grin.
Some drivers have gone further, trailing fluttering flags from their cars, draping scarves round their rear-view mirrors, and even plastering semi-transparent flag stickers across entire windshields.
The mania is a chance for the often unstable country to escape the daily grind, and good news for vendors, with even those who usually sell cellphones or children’s toys adding flags to their stock to cash in.
“Every day we get closer to the World Cup, flag sales increase,” says 23-year-old vendor Ali Nasrallah in the Sabra Palestinian camp in Beirut.
“The flags we sell most are Brazil, Germany and Italy.”
A survey of the landscape makes it clear that Brazil, Germany and Italy are indeed local favorites, with the three nations best represented among the flags flying from cars and homes.
In Lebanon, World Cup fever a break from politics
