Football Wedding: aka العرس الكروي

The craze of world cup 2006 is about to end. France and Italy to the finals, and many doubt the validity of their achievements. But this is not the issue. Yesterday Italy won 2 to nothing against Germany. Then people started expressing their Identity Confusion.
The area where I live has became the hot spot for celebrations. Young kids from the neighborhood, joined by hundreds more of the suburbs, start to raise flags, scream with joy and drive around in the middle of the night honking and waking up every resting soul. People would arrive in taxis just to join the celebration. I am pretty sure that such a cheerleading campaign never happened when Ghada Shoaa won Syria a gold medal.
The amazing thing is that whenever a game is played, somebody would go out and celebrate. And these somebodies take pride in their "favorite team" achievements as if they were nationals of that country. The flags proudly flutter on tops of houses and on balconies, not to mention the absence of the Syrian flag itself, which I thought at least should be displayed with the others. It seems that the positive reports from UN inspectors have faded the patriotic move that heated few months ago. A friend of mine (in one of the Syrian towns) has tried shopping around for the Syrian flag... his mission failed because "we don't have it". Of course you can guess the reason: "Syria in not participating in World Cup". How can that happen?
Hence the Identity confusion. Have we lost our belonging, or got bored with it, to make this switch in positions? And is this a sign of frustration? Or is it the government trying to let the people get busy with such trivial things to divert them from big things happening? I personally cheer a certain team in the World Cup, but I don't remember myself displaying flags and driving around like crazy, or even getting into fight with others regarding who won and who didn't.
I have another interesting thought. Let's suppose that someone is cheering USA (why not, everyone has the right to cheer whoever they want), would it be acceptable in Syria to display the American flag on the top of the roof? Or would the government allow it? And shouldn't this be the case for every other nation too? I had an evil thought of having someone displaying the USA flag for cheering it, and then the government would have to remove all the other flags.
I am glad this is coming to an end anyway. Are we anyway ever to be in the elite 32 teams once before I die??