World Cup in London: Slovenia

Or: Nogomet! Football with London's Slovenian fans

Day three of World Cup in London took me (and my friend Eseld) to a bar called The Colonies near Victoria station.

Slovenia are making the most of their World Cup debut by advertising tourism in Slovenia, so the bar was decorated with flags and banners with the oh-so-slightly-camp Donna-Summer-referencing slogan: I FEEL SLOVENIA.

Initially, however, all was quiet with only a few people present. I hoped it wouldn't be a repeat of my last time watching with Slovenia. Some were wearing the trendy Slovenian football jersey but most were not adhering to the green dress code. One man wore a white shirt adorned with Slovenian flags. So far, so good.

As the game went on, the bar filled up with a jovial, fun atmosphere. I suspect the Slovenians didn't expect to win, as they chatted and joked with the match in the background.

That was until near the very end, when Algeria had a man sent off. Suddenly, it mattered. When Slovenia scored soon afterwards, the bar erupted in cheers and chants with everyone jumping and punching the air.

Ten minutes later, Slovenia had won. Valiant Slovenia had arrived. The fans began singing and chanting and poured out onto the street, cheering and jumping and posing with flags for photographs.

Today's matches were quite popular with a whole bunch of bloggers and photographs watching the matches with foreign fans - say hello to Simon & Angela.

Nogomet! Football with London's Slovenian fans

I said the Slovenes were elusive, and they were. Until Saturday noon, I had nothing more than 'go to Sports Bar; hope to see a Slovene'. Then, Mox (great name!) of the London-Slovene facebook and Yahoo! groups came to the rescue with the Famous 3 Kings in West Kensington.

The bar turned out to be full of fans - Russian fans, German fans, French fans, Czech fans, Polish fans, Italian fans, Ukrainian fans, and, yes, Slovene fans!

Many screens showed several matches, with fan groups spread out all over. To begin with, just three were watching the Slovenia game. One bloke on his own. Another bloke on his own. And me. On my own. The atmosphere was not electric.

So I bounced off to watch the Czech-Polish match. The Poles were very excited to be winning. The Czechs all had crazy hair - dreadlocks, long red streaked hair, long hair.

Finally, I saw two Slovenian blokes. It's safe to say they weren't all that interested. One played with his phone, and then looked at the menu. Later, they were chatting animatedly. They even discussed the air conditioning at one point. There were no flags.

Frankly, I don't blame them. It was a boring match. My highlight was seeing a sign saying "Brkini Za Slovenijo" because Slovenijo is an ace word.

When Slovenia scored two flukey goals near the end to win the match, another man celebrated quietly with a smile.

The Russians and Germans were much more excited. The Russians were a mix of trendy types (Dolce & Gabanna hats, coiffed hair) and total hardnuts. The Russians cheered a lot. They even cheered when they lost.

The Germans were giving their "Aus auf Deutschland, something is a doora!" song and the Russians retaliated with "Russ-ki-ja! Russ-ki-ja!". This made up for my not being able to find Russians during Euro 2008.

Later, I stopped off in Piccadilly to take a peek at Kazakh football fans waiting to go into a match after party.

It was £20 to get in, so I gave it a skip. Here's what I (most likely) missed - my favourite Kazakh-pop-tune.

Next up! - I was thinking the Belarussians, but I may have a tip for Norwegians on Wednesday, so it'll probably be them.

3 Balkan maps: Slovenia by Fredi, Croatia by Klaus and Serbia by Marina

I mostly travelled by train when in Slovenia, Croatia & Serbia, providing me with ample opportunity to ask fellow travellers to draw their countries.

On my train from Ljubljana to Zagreb, I asked Fredi to draw Slovenia for my collection. He did (in miniature), and a few minutes later, presented me with lots of tourist destination business cards "for my collection". I had absolutely no use for these, but it was a lovely gesture nonetheless.

On the long and slow train from Zagreb to Belgrade, I met Klaus who, despite the German name, was Croatian. I started speaking to him when, at the Serbian border, I thought I had to get off the train. I didn't, and Klaus, a fellow Eurovision visitor, set me right. Klaus drew Croatia, and apparently stole some land from Slovenia, he said with a giggle.

Later in the trip, Marina from Serbia joined us in the compartment. Marina studies in Berlin, and was amused but pleased by us Eurovision travellers. When I asked her to draw Serbia, she joked about whether she should be politically correct or not. I sighed with relief that she thought it a joke - she has included Kosovo in the map.