After seeing my first game in Germany the day before, I still didn’t know what to expect. All I knew that this game would be between the first and second place teams in the regionalliga, the fourth tier of football in Germany and the highest semi professional level, just below professional. Sure I thought there might be a few more people there and that tickets would cost a little bit more, but nothing drastically different. I was way off.

But before I get into that, I thought it would be worth mentioning that after spending Saturday and Sunday catching the u Bahn every where I saw a lot more people wearing athletic gear and bringing large gear bags with them. I even saw people carrying footballs around a couple times. Weekends are definitely the time where this city unwinds and the the people get out and play. If only it were always the weekend! Anyways, this time, though, I would not be alone. My classmate Ian decided to join me.

The crew commeth.

Anways back to this game, if you could even call it that. Tickets were 10 euro, 8 with student id, so sweet. While I got it one of the first things I noticed was that there were cops EVERYWHERE. There were tons of the politzei vans every where that packed like 8 of them together. What was going on, I thought, am I going to a game or a war? They were probably there were tons of people there. I thought maybe 500 max, but there were thousands of people there. I couldn’t even guess how many. Anyways as we tried getting into the stadium, I kept seeing a lot of people with injuries; arm braces, leg braces, crutches. These were the people who loved the game and played it all the time, yet had suffered from it and now wanted to watch a good match to make them feel better.

As we were going in, we realized that the game had already started. To add on to this, while we were going through security the crowd had erupted. Apparently a goal had been scored, and from what I coul tell it had been the away team that scored. When we finally got into the game we realized that we had accidentally entered into the away fan seating section. They literally had their own section, completely separate from the home fans, and also lacking any kind of roof or protection from the weather at all, well played. This seating area, if you could call it that, had no seats. Simply wide and flat concrete steps with the occasion metal bar for leaning on. I wanted to photograph and document the whole situation more, but someone came up to me and said something about ‘keine fotos’ in German. Damn, oh well. I managed to sneak a couple good ones, but not as much as I would have liked.

The notes I had taken from the game before had given me a good baseline to work off of. This was pleasant as I would not have to be making so many notes through out or concentrating on all the little things and would be able to really just watch the game and enjoy the atmosphere. So me and Ian grabbed some beers and took in the game.

Notes on the game: these guys were waaaaaaay better than the day before. The pace was truly exciting and a thrill to watch. All of their touches were great. These guys could probably beat the best team in America/mls if they played them. The aggressiveness in the midfield was still just fantastic and amazing to watch. They were so fast and able to cover so much ground so quickly. This type of movement would have to be achieved through lots and lots of sprints. Better get to work. There was one occasion were one team had a goal kick, and right before the keeper kicked it he motioned his defense to push up. They did so, however the right defender had not tucked in centrally. Half the team called to him and waved him over. Interesting. Keep the integrity of your teams shape at all times. Two more goals were scored and the game ended 2-1, but we had mistakenly thought that the away team had scored the first goal, when actually it was the home team. Ian and I both thought the fans we were sitting with were in the winning side the whole game. After all they were estatic and full of energy the whole game. Especially when they scored a goal and people started rush the fence and shaking it. When the game ended, the crowd we were with went silent to our surprise. Amazing, simply amazing.

It was an awesome game, I wish I could watch it over, but I know that my game experiences aren’t over yet. It just might be hard to match that atmosphere between the two teams I first and second place! We’ll see.