EURO 2024. In the fight with the little Belgians, they suddenly became ours and are no longer Turkish or Balkan

mthe joy of this football championship is (with the exception of the victory with Ukraine), for me, the gastronomic battle between the supporters. The culinary frenzy started by the Swiss with their thematic hats and the slogan "fondue better than goulash" was continued by two symbolic, identical gestures: the Albanians who broke spaghetti in front of some Italians kneeling because of the gesture and the Austrians who broke the French baguette. Italy managed, like Romania, to participate, even to consistently put its shoulder to the construction of Albania's football history. With us, in their first participation, they scored the first victory of a final championship, in 2018, with Squadra Azzurra the fastest goal in Europe. The Italians reacted on the field with two goals in the first half and in the lawns with the verdict "eat pasta run fasta"

Paradoxically, in a competition that stood out for the enormous number of own goals, the Romanians attack and do not rush towards their own culinary goal. In the square in front of the Cologne Cathedral, our supporters display messages such as "mici is better than waffles" & "mujdei is better than chocolate". Suddenly, when the stakes are in football, the car accidents that we are used to don't matter anymore (little ones, sarmales or belly soup are not ours... in the case of mujdei even Dan Alexe, a resident of the Brussels Capital Region, who insists that etymology is the science that proves everything - including that until the Ottomans came to teach us the word shepherd, there were almost no shepherds - he says it would have autochthonous roots and that no one else taught us to eat crushed garlic diluted with water).

So, culinary, Romania is kicking ass, and I think it's the first time it's doing this, visibly and in unison. Maybe just the brief flexing of muscles when the EU wanted to ban baking soda from mitites to compete with our gastronomic pride today. Until yesterday we were suffering because we had nothing, today we are bragging about the taste value in the most beautiful war in existence: the gastronomic duel. I'm glad that the gastronomic identities are so strong that they work successfully as a metaphor and substitute for fists and legs. It's probably not the first time, but I don't know of any championship where food was so present. Culinary dysphemisms (sausages, rice, macaroni have also been heard and written in sports commentary, usually misplaced). But today, these days, more than ever, people identify with national dishes. And how nice it would be if all wars were fought with garlic howitzers from the Land of Dracula versus chocolate soldiers.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for those of us who are dressed in yellow and with the stamp of the supporters to do so in such a way as to explode the support on the RheinEnergieStadion!

Photo credit: Catalin Oprisan and Daniel Bran