Watching afternoon football is bad for the eyes

There is a problem with having outdoor televised matches under the Berlin midday sun. The glare off the screen makes it impossible to see either the ball or players when they are under the shaded part of the stadium.

The first inkling we had of it was watching the opener. you had to squint at the screen at times, although overall it wasn’t too bad. Then came the Australia-Japan game.

We decided to have it in an outdoor cafe near our hostel. We had scouted the food beforehand and it looked good - it was. However, the LCD projector, despite being the shade, looked like somebody had smeared vaseline over the projector lens. Australia’s gold and green looked paled yellow and lime greenish.

And it wasn’t just that screen. Every time we saw a 3pm game on an outside screen, it looked fairly horrendous. It was impossible to watch half the game and the only way sometimes to know what happened is to watch the reactions of the players. Happy celebrations = a goal was scored.

I was wondering why we never got this problem in Malaysia and then I realised: We usually watch our football at night.

Labels: germany, world cup