By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
EAST VILLAGE — The dreams of Germany’s World Cup glory are kaput on Avenue C.
Zum Schneider — a Bavarian-style beer garden at the corner of East Seventh Street that has become the unofficial home of German soccer fans — had the air taken out of it Wednesday following the team’s 1-0 loss to Spain in their semifinal match.
Forlorn fans who had previously flooded the street after the team’s 4-0 demolition of Argentina on Saturday streamed out of the bar with their hopes for a fourth World Cup title unceremoniously dashed.
“I can’t explain, but they didn’t play like they did the last two games against the great [soccer] nations,” said German-born Henry Schroder-Castendyck, 22, who was on a vacation in New York “to shop and watch football.”
“If you come that far, you think, ‘Ah sh—t, it could have worked out.’”
Despite the depressing outcome, the Zum Schneider faithful — clad in homemade T-shirts emblazoned with the bar’s name and the team’s colors — still celebrated a successful tournament campaign and the friendships forged inside the bar.
“It’s a real good community. Even if you’re not from [Germany], you become a German fan,” said Toni Ghosh, 47, a longtime patron who lives in NoHo.
He added that when the police arrived outside the bar on Saturday to ostensibly break up the party, they simply asked for T-shirts and went on their way.
“There’s obviously a lot of Germans here, and a lot of part-time Germans for the World Cup.”
The bar’s owner, Sylvester Schneider, 47, who watched the game draped in a German flag with a vuvuzela pressed to his lips, explained that he will take down the televisions until the European soccer championship rolls around in two years, followed by the next World Cup in 2014.
“I’m not very proud of what I’m doing here,” he said matter-of-factly, “but when I look out my window and see people lined up here at 7 a.m. for a 10 a.m. game, I feel a tiny bit of pride.”
