Soccer brings 2008 naked people together

The beautiful game is the reason for 2008 naked bodies.

Remember that.

As the UEFA Euro 2008 championship nears some photographer is gonna fill a soccer stadium with a buncha naked fans.

New York contemporary artist Spencer Tunick (right) has gained notoriety worldwide for photographing thousands of people in the nude.

You know you've made it when you're internationally famous for taking pictures of naked people, right? I dare you to Google Image Search him. NSFW!!!

So for this new project, the Austrian national railway said it'd offer free transportation for the first 2008 men and women who volunteer for this bare-skinned shindig on May 11. As of a couple weeks ago, Tunick and Co. had already registered enough subjects.

No surprise.

They want to stage the event in Ernst Happel Stadium, the site of the Euro championship final.

"2,008 naked people would be super!" said Katharina Murschetz of Kunsthalle Wien, a prestigious Vienna art exhibition center that is organizing the mass-nudity display.

Way to prove you're European crazy naked-people-loving lady.

Murschetz said the Austrian capital thinks Tunick's unusual genre is perfect for the European soccer championship "because he spreads a strong sense of community spirit" in the same way that the sport does.

Ah yes, nothing brings people together like naked people. And don't give me the "11 different positions in 90 minutes" line. And don't feel bad for thinking Amsterdam was a better option.

Tunick will keep his plan for the pose a secret until gametime. But here's some other things you should know about him, because you know you're interested:

• "His record? Photographing more than 18,000 unclothed people en masse in Mexico City's main square last year (right)."


• "Sometimes he poses them in fetal positions; other times lying prone on the ground."
  
  
• Has photographed "naked bodies on glaciers, in front of the United Nations, in downtown Amsterdam, Netherlands, on hotel balconies overlooking Miami's famed South Beach and in more than 70 other locations from Montreal to Melbourne, Australia."

I guess only one thing could make Europeans get more excited for a soccer tournament (as I beat this stereotype to death for only one reason: lack of creativity, and it's actually flawed because the photographer is from New York)...

Nudity.