I have recently discovered more about the league system here in Deutschland. The Berlin Liga, or 6th tier, had been the lowest levels I had been able to find. Now, however, it is clear that the tiers go all the way down to 14. From roughly 7-10, maybe farther, are various ranges of what are called the Bezirksliga and the Kreissklasse, in that order. Because this is so far down on the food chain, I doubt that e scope of the leagues ranges anything past a single city or small cluster of villages near each other. Berlin is a big city, so it can warrant its own league, but when you get to the smaller areas, then you will have fewer teams in total.
Author: KDay (Page 4 of 5)
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.
Today we visit the Boros Bunker near the center of the city. This bunker had actually been transformed into an art gallery though! How cool yet strange, probably the last thing you would expect to find in a giant concrete bunker. 5 floors, 130 works, 23 artists later and I would have to say my favorite exhibit was definitely the popcorn machine. Just looking at the piles of popcorn and realizing it was only going to keep growing was so interesting. Plus I just really wanted to roll around in it, don’t know why, it just looked so inviting.
This weekend I went to my first German football matches. This was a very big and important step for my overall comprehension of Deutsch football. I have seen so many matches on tv, but now it was time for the real thing. The first game I went to was a Berlin Liga, 6th tier, game at Ludwig-Jahn – Sportpark. I had heard about this complex, and for good reason. The first thing I saw when I arrived was the giant stadium. I had hopes that the game would be played there, but those quickly went away as the stairs up to the seat were all locked. Moving on I saw two more turf fields side by side, this is a common sight for complexes. These could be practice fields, or for games of lower Leagues. Past these fields though, I saw my destination. There lay the beautiful grass field reserved for the higher profile matches. In case you had not realized this yet, grass is by FAR the best surface to play on. There was a relatively large building I had to pass through in order to get to the field. In here there was a guy selling tickets. The original price was 6 euro, but with a student id it was down to 3, what a great deal. The seating area was small, and restricted to one side of the field, but as I found out later that section would get packed. The view was great, though. The grass looked great, wanted to run around on it so bad. And the location as awesome as well! There were apartments all around which gave the field a very urban feel. A lot of the time urban fields are in the middle of parks or forest areas so there aren’t very cool views around the field, but I found the view here to be quite enjoyable. If someone wanted to, they could easily look out one of the windows and watch a game.
Once the game started it was down to business. I watched everything closely, from their formations to how many players were on the bench. Each team had roughly 5 or six players on their bench, so a total of 17 present. This made sense though as I realized that here they would follow traditional substitution rules with only 3 subs per game. I have never played in a game that follows these rules, in college there are free subbing basically. Overall the level of quality as approximately that of two good college teams playing. I found their pace to be quality, but not overwhelming in any way. One of the most immediate differences I noticed, though, which continued throughout the game was the utilization of free kicks. For both of these teams, every free kick presented a huge opportunity that wa taken advantage of fully. This means complicated runs around the ball for misdirection and most importantly, QUALITY SERVICE. I can’t tell you how often, even in my games that the service is sub par. These crosses were whipped in, not floated, and all of them were dangerous. There was constant communication as well, which is always the sign of a well organized team. The chatter latex all game and it showed, the defensive organization was phenomenal for both squads, all the way to the end, even when they were getting tired. One of the words that I was able to pick, from what they said was ‘zeit’ which means time. There was a lot of English used as well, but all of the German was hard to pick up. Shame, this is something I need to learn.
There were lots of little details that were interesting to note as well. For instance, when ever someone got injured and went to the sideline, and thus that team would play with ten men for a little, they would completely collapse on defense, drop the forward back and protect the goal first. Good choice I say. The players in the midfield were the most fun to watch, although the overall level of everyone’s touches was quite phenomenal (far better than a college game) the most inspiring moments were their turns with pressure on their backs. The ability to use strength to hold of the defender as well as play the touch into the right space was something to admire. These battles in the midfield are where I need to take notes. The play there was so aggressive. It almost seemed like, the was a foul on every play, but only half the time it was called. You gotta want the ball! This aggressive attitude translated into headers as well. Every aerial play was hard fought with two players going up and reaching the ball at its highest point. Very impressive. I did notice, however, that a lot of players had a knack to force the play in one direction with the ball at their feet. I have seen this often, this may have been because they are more comfortable with one foot, but regardless, the game could have used a lot more Cruyff turns. I will need to practice this. Like most teams I know of, the home team definitely had a trouble maker as well. The type of player who would get into it with any one any chance he got, he got yellow carded and deservedly so. In fact I could have sworn he got two yellows, but I guess I was mistaken.
I’d guess around 110 people were there. Pic doesn’t do justice.
As far as the actual game went, this covered most of the important details. The fans on the sideline were always into it too. On one occasion when the home team had a corner kick during the closing minutes of the game, there were some people who started a slow clap for it. This was the only time, though which makes me think, was that their only corner? The store for food and beer probably earned the club a couple more dollars too. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made over 1000 euros on the day. This really isn’t enough to pay the players though, considering field maintenance costs as well as kits, etc. Another discovery I made was how in depth the clubs here can get. The building I had walked throu to get to the field was actually the headquarters of the home team. Here they had locker rooms, offices and even a cafeteria where there 1st, 2nd, 3rd and u19 teams could eat, I’m assuming after practice. In the pamphlet they handed out, I discovered that they practice 3 times a week. This is good, but not enough to play at the next level. You need to be able to play every day before you really start getting better.
When the game ended, I left quite satisfied with my discoveries, but still still quenching more. I was pleasantly surprised to find a cool statue waiting for me which I had walked passed earlier. And just passed that I found a pleasant game of pick up going on. They were playing on a dirt basketball court, with hoops in the middle that they were playing around, but people had brought mini goals, so they had a perfect field. Watching them was fun, but I couldn’t last long, for it just made me want to play more. These are the times I curse myself for not bringing my shoes. This is an interesting topic though, which I often consider. In order to step in and play with these guys, I would have wanted a completely different change of clothes as well. This may have been a lot to carry. Anyways, I will be sure to visit this Sportpark again in the near future, I really enjoyed the time I spent there, but I knew my weekend was not over yet. Tomorrow I would be going to another game for the regionalliga. I could not wait.
I woke up this morning with a craving for getting some touches in. I had spent so much time trying to find other people to play with that I had not made time for myself. So I ate some breakfast and hopped on a bike and rode to the closest field I knew of, Lichterfelde. On a bike it is maybe ten minutes away. When I got there, there were relatively few people. Most of them were little kids with their parents. So I rode up to one of the goals, put my ball on the field and started lacing up my boots. As I did so, though, a group of kids ran onto the field I had ‘claimed’ and started playing around. My heart sank, I knew it, these kids had a game this morning and I wasn’t going to get to play at all. As I pondered what to do next, a man came up behind me. He immediately unloaded on me with a flurry of German, all I understood was ‘nichts’ and ‘fahrad’. I asked him if he spoke English and he said that I was not allowed to bring my bike on to the field, but also that I could still play there because the kids were going to move over on to the other side of the field. Oh thank god.
While I was warming up getting ready to get some touches in I took notice of the situation around me. On the other side of the field, the kids started doing shooting drills on their goal keeper, while they did this another group of kids who had playing on the other field came over and joined them on that’s idol the field, doing drill with their goalie as well. They were to be opponents in the coming match. The field they were playing on was half the size of a normal field and the played horizontally along it with the goals on the sidelines. Seeing as how they were probably only ten years old, this made sense. But then on the other field were the second group of kids had come from, there were two teams of men, probably between fourty and fifty years old, setting up another field the same way. This intrigued me. These men were well past their prime and playing on a full field would probably have been asking too much of them. So fields this size made sense. It was either 7v7 or 6v6 with goalies. I personally love playing on fields that size, as drills or practice maybe. Smaller fields means more shots.
So I admired the scenery and started playing. After maybe twenty or so minutes, a little kid came over with his small, soft, flat ball and started mimicking me. I thought great, there goes my chance for getting some shots in, now this kid’s in the way. At first I tried sort of maneuvering around him, but the entire time he seemed to be watching me. Eventually he started getting my ball for me after I shot it and kicking it back to me. This kid was younger than the others, maybe only 8 or so, so he really wasn’t very good, yet I still thought it was kind of entertaining to see him fetch the ball for me. As things played out, we started interacting more and more, nothing was said, we just played. He tried playing goalie and blocking my shots, I played goalie and tried blocking his shots,often letting them go in intentionally. He seemed to find everything I did very funny and entertaining. Sometimes I would pretend to dive for the ball and intentionally miss it and he would burst out laughing. Gee what a confidence booster, this guy thinks I’m hilarious. I may have been disappointed that I wasn’tgetting the touches in that I wanted, yet somehow I didn’t seem to mind. We kept this up for probably close to half an hour before I had had enough. I pointed to my watch and motioned to him that I had to leave. He immediately looked quite sad, yet I could tell he was also trying to hide it. He turned to pick up his ball and started walking away. In that moment I remembered what had happened at the bar a couple nights ago. I called to him and motioned him over. “Wie heissen Sie?” I asked. “Nieltz” he replied. “Ein photo?” He nodded. I took this picture, thanked him and we went our separate ways.
Now that I am in Berlin, I want to see some football matches! My original plan was to see a game for both Hertha and Union, however, much to my disappointment, there may have to be a change of plans. Of course I should have know that with such a big city like Berlin, it would have been hard to come by tickets. All of Hertha’s games for the rest of the season are sold out! I looked up tickets for Union matches, but I was unsuccessful every time. They are a partially fan owned team, which I think contributes to my confusion and difficulty in finding info on them and getting tickets. Every website I look at is in German too which can lead to misinterpretation. I have not given up on either of these teams. As I have done before in the past, you can always show up at the stadium and try to get tickets there, maybe a scalper, I don’t care. It will definitely be pricey but I have my eyes on the cup match against Dortmund on April 20th. If I can’t get in, I here/bet they will have community viewing on a jumbo screen outside the stadium. Olympiastadion is a world renowned venue and I would really love to get a chance to see a game in it. As for Union, I can try and do something similar. Showing up and trying to get in may be a little easier there. I have heard, maybe incorrectly, that they consistently pack 20,000 plus into a stadium built to hold 4,000, so I have hope.
In the mean while I will gather more info and see some lower level matches such as for the Berlin Liga and the Regional Liga. This weekend I will have the luxury of seeing the first and second place teams in the latter league duke it out in Berlin. BERLINER V ZWICKAU! Should be a great match! These matches for lower levels are more numerous and more often nearby. Plus their season extends a couple weeks past that of the top league, the Bundesliga. However, there are other factors that could contribute to things not going my way. For instance, if the teams I want to see aren’t the home team, then I am SOL. This may not be the case for the last game of the year in the Bundesliga. Our last day of CIEE class is on 5/13, the last games are on 5/14, if I am really determined, or desperate, I may book it out to either Nurnburg or Düsseldorf to catch a game. Another factor is the week earlier we are traveling out to Prague for a weekend conference as a class. As I am writing this, I am just now realizing the possibility of seeing a game there. A chill went down my spine. A chill of excitement. I’ll have to start researching.
Last night I went out to find somewhere I could watch the champions league football matches. I had missed the games the previous night, I was not going to make that mistake again. I have found that it is rather hard to find places where matches will be on tv. Sports bars are always a good bet, but those are few and far between. Most places to eat in Berlin are either fancy, high end restaurants or small, locally owned hole I the wall joints, neither of which would one expect to find a tv. However, I have come to realize that there are specific places I can always count on to have a game on, Irish pubs. I know what you are thinking, pubs in Germany? Let me assure you, almost everyone was German, the host was Irish but spoke Deutsch. Before I get to that, I’ll start from the beginning. After googling, I found that there were two Irish pubs near my place. A hotel stood between me and both of them, though. Somewhere I had read that hotel receptionists were good people to ask about finding things locally. So I got to the hotel and asked the lady where games where available to be seen. At first she couldn’t think of anything, but then she made a phone call. I overheard the word ‘Finnegan’s’ and this was the confirmation I needed. One of the pubs was called Finnegan’s, the other ‘Cottage Cheese’, (which I will check out next time). I thanked the lady and set out on my way. It was only a ten minute or so walk. I didn’t know what to expect, if this place turned out to be a bust, I would go to the next one. But as I alluded to earlier, this was no bust.
I walked into Finnegan’s feeling nervous as usual. I will keep feeling this way until my German gets much better. But this feeling quickly disappeared, I looked up and there they were. Tv’s, glorious tv’s. Football players were shown warming up, coaches were being interviewed and I had got my groove back. I walked past the first layer of tables farther into the back, looking for somewhere to sit with a good view. There sat a small table with six stools around it and only one of them filled. I went up to the man sitting there and asked if he spoke English, he smiled and said yes in a peculiar accent I had not heard before and then that’s where the fun began.
After conversing with my tablemate for a little, trying out my German, the game began, Wolfsburg against Real Madrid. Wolfsburg has been having a dream run in the champions league so far, they are a small team compared to the rest of the seven other powerhouses left in the tournament. Needless to say they were heavy, HEAVY underdogs in this match, even though they were playing at home. The man I was sitting with did not know who was playing, but once he realized Wolfsburg, a German team, would be playing, he said “Wolfsburg is playing? Should be a good atmosphere.” This made me realize, Germans are fiercely loyal to their countries clubs, even if it isn’t their favorite local team, which he said was Hertha BSC. The game started as I would have expected, Madrid was running the field, all of their players looked fluid and comfortable and Wolfsburg was hardly seeing any of the ball. Things looked grim for the home team, but then the man said, “All it takes is one stupid mistake.” How true those words are.
Five minutes later, Schurrle is fouled in the box and Ricardo Rodriguez scores on the penalty kick! Wolfsburg 1- Madrid 0. Unexpected but surely there would be a response. 15 minutes later, Wolfsburg scores again! The place is going nuts, I’m going nuts, everyone is going nuts. How could Madrid, coming off one of their greatest victories in recent memory over arch nemesis Barcelona, be losing?
Haltime comes around and the two gents sitting at the table next to us move over and now we are four. I use the break to my advantage to interrogate them. Turns out neither of them were the biggest fans of football and they didn’t usually stay out and watch games like this. I asked them about local play and the looked at each other puzzled. Clubs, they said, were the only real way to go around here. Another blow to my search for pick up games. However another lead gained. “Try Stern” they said. FC Stern 1900 is one of the teams I have been researching as a possible club to meet up with.
As the second half began, I had a completely different experience. I’ll go ahead and spoil the game now, Wolfsburg won 2-0, even though this is one of the biggest upsets of the year and really was a great match, but this is besides the point, interesting things were happening elsewhere as well. Now that there were more Germans at the table, my original table mate had people to talk to in his native tongue and be more ‘expressive’ with. These men, who all said they were not that big of fans of football, all knew the game very, very well. The small little details of the game did not go unappreciated. For instance the went absolutely ape shit over one-touch, almost always, even when nothing of significance would happen. Maybe there is a message here, more one-touch perhaps? This makes the game faster, but less rhythmic in a way. Regardless, good one-touch is rarely a bad thing. One of the most hilarious aspects to watching the game with this certain crowd was that everyone laughed at the players when they dived. European football has a bad reputation for diving and theatrics. These guys were enjoying the flops. They laugh and whine, awwww, they would say, then mercilessly mock the player at fault, which ever team he belonged to. They also used fabulous vocabulary when describing great plays. “Das ist frisch” was easily my favorite.
Fresh. Wasn’t this a slang term young kids used to describe their clothes or something? Or a way to describe good food? Whats going on here? Maybe I need to go deeper, past my sloppy English translation. Fresh, new? Tasty? Original? Different? Raw? The average allusion of these words accumulates into some along the lines of Something Never Seen Before. Ah yes, the creative flair. Sure there really is no room for showboating and excessiveness, but what is the point of playing the game like a bunch of robots and not letting your inner self take co troll of your bodily expression? After all football is an art. Although this concept is not new to me, it will certainly warrant much more thought. Fresh…
I am ashamed to say that I walked out of the bar that night without knowing any of their names, I won’t make that mistake again. I did get a picture with them however, and I am thankful for that because this was an extremely enjoyable and memorable experience.
While walking through Kreuzberg near the CIEE, I found a small sign along the sidewalk that was filled with pictures and details documenting the rise of fussball in Germany. Apparently this was the site of the first team in Berlin back in 1870, a couple brothers founded the group along with some friends, nearly 150 years later the sport has exploded worldwide.
Every where I go in this city I have asked people “wo kann mann spielen fussball?” Unfortunately my questioning has yielded no physical results. Until last night I had been unable to find anyone to actually play with. After biking around I came across one of the caged, basketball sized outdoor courts that I have been seeing everywhere. I saw a group of people warming up, not yet playing, and I jumped at the chance. Approaching the gate and being eyeballed by the whole squad, I asked the first person I found if I could play. He asked his friend for a translation, then said yes. The playing soon began and I immediately realized the situation. This was a practice for a team of people with mental disabilities, or ‘handicapped’. From the way they talked and moved, I knew that this wasn’t the appropriate skill level for me, but then I realized something. I have played with many people with disabilities back in the states, and let me tell you, this group was competitive. They were busting moves, sliding tackles and even talking trash! This was completely unexpected, but should I be so surprised? These guys, and one girl who could ball by the way, cared enough about the game to come out on a weekday night, even though, I was informed, they would all have to wake up early the next morning and go to work. I saw jerseys and gear from the locale professional team Hertha BSC and a Barcelona Messi jersey. The sport of fussball had been so important in their lives that nothing could keep the, from playing it and enjoying it with each other. I had thought that I was going to head out after a little, but I ended up playing four games with them for an hour and a half!
Although I seek more competitive, or rather ‘skillful’ play’ I am grateful for this encounter. Now I plan to follow up on some of the leads I have gained from my questioning. I have heard that pick up games can happen at Mauer, Gorlitzer, and Prenzlauer berg parks. I intend to make it to all of them.
A few notes in the meanwhile on the fussball situation here. Like Seattle, this is a big urban city, and fields are somewhat of a commodity. I was under the impression that every field I came across, all day would be filled with people playing non stop, but this is unrealistic, people have to go to work, and students have to go to school. Fields I come across during the day are usually empty, but I have found two, near the CIEE, that are potential meeting grounds. The fields here are all made of a much harder, less forgiving turf surface which is unfortunate, no one would want to slide tackle on that or you would get wrecked. Only the field complex at Lichterfelde, near my homestay has a grass field and softer surfaces, but then again, it is the training grounds for semi-professional team FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin.
Last note: there are tons of these little caged, concrete courts with mini goals everywhere. Perhaps these are the more common locations for playing. This difference between the courts and open fields are that a. they are much smaller so you don’t have to run as much, (but won’t build your fitness up either, or give you more appropriate game experience), however, b. they are small. In small places like this it is harder for you to dribble the ball around someone, so it is definitely a good place to work on your foot speed and control of the ball, which is essential. Maybe we need more of these in the states…
As a class we went on a tour through downtown Berlin and saw some of the more famous landmarks. Today we visited the urban development exhibit. Take a look.