Class ended early this time so I was able to book it out and try to catch the end of the weekly kick around sessions that I heard about while at the CIEE. I had been directed to the field around the corner, but after that I really didn’t know where I was going. By the time I arrived at the field it was already 4:00, I looked around unsuccessfully for a while but eventually found what I was looking for. Due to the weather everyone had gone into the little gym nearby and were playing an indoor version of the game with smaller goals and everything. The first person I saw happened to be Martin Klei, the academic director at CIEE. Another man, who was a bit older let me in to the building, because it was locked, asked if I was CIEE, then directed me to the changing room next to the gym. After gearing up and entering the court I became confused as to what was going on. There were two teams playing against each other, while another group of people sat on benches around the edge. Subs? I wander over to the bench and by the time I got there, the game had ended and Martin’s team took a seat. It was clear now, three teams, play two games then take a break, I like it. I met Martin and he introduced me to some other fellow CIEE students who happened to be football enthusiasts as well. Brian, Alex, Javier and Daniella I believe they were; plus Martin and I made six, which happens to be perfect as the other teams had six too and so they had been playing a man down. The other teams consisted of all Germans, one team consisted of teachers at a local school, I’m not sure which one, maybe it’s CIEE, the other was a bunch of high school students.<\/p>\n
The games were fast paced and fun. The court shoes I brought helped a lot, but there was still some slipping and sliding going on. The other teams were very good. All of the teachers could ball, even the ones who appered to be at least in their 40’s. One of the first moments of the game, when my team finally stepped on, was having one of the teachers juggle the ball over my head, rather than be angered by this I was amazed and impressed because I had not thought his man capable of pulling something off like that. But the other team was were the real magic happened. Afterwards I found out they were all roughly 15 and 16 years old, yet they were so good! Aside from the talent their best trait was their communication and organization. I thought surely these kids played together all the time on some club, but afterwards I found out they weren’t even on clubs! There were other kids their age who were apparently much better! Jeez. Granted I was new to the whole scene, the other students had been there since January, but we could still all speak the same language, and yet our communication couldn’t compare to either of these other teams. This is something important that I am still desperately trying to figure out, and that is German dialogue during games. What types of things are they saying to each other and how are they different from what I am used to in English?<\/p>\n
These games were tiring and I was surprised to find myself gassed by the end of our second game and welcoming a little break. Unfortunately, since they had to leave the gym by 5, those were the only games I was able to play. Because my class probably wouldn’t end early again, I knew that this was my one chance to get the information I needed. I talked mostly to Martin, but also to Javeir a little bit. They told about various locations of pickup games that can occur. For instance at the same field, just outside the gym at 7 on Mondays, there is apparently a weekly pickup session. I will definitely try to make it to the next one and scout it out. Martin, who could definitely ball by the way, had a lot of experience with this city. We discussed the notion of my true interest, and that is to maybe practice with a club. He said that all the clubs, all the way down to the lowest league are all much more formal, competitive and require commitments. He also said that the less skilled and lower level games usually feature slower defenders who tackle harder; they are no less competitive he said. Thus a risk of injury is presented when trying to play with clubs. From the interviews on team websites that I have read, a single injury can change your career. This is something I want to avoid at all costs. I asked him if he thought I would be able to simply practice with a club team, no games, just practices, and he thought no. Practices are times where they want to get their own players better, they wouldn’t have time for a random guy to join in. This made sense. Then he said something interesting, he said that if I was going to try and play with a club, then I should avoid revealing to them that I would only be in Berlin for a short time before heading back to the states. Although the seasons are all coming to an end, this may be a perfect opportunity if I play it right. The offseason is surely where most teams do their player trading and acquiring, perhaps many clubs would be looking at this time to have random players show up and play with them? This may be my chance to make some great discoveries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Class ended early this time so I was able to book it out and try to catch the end of the weekly kick around sessions that I heard about while at the CIEE. I had been directed to the field around the corner, but after that I really didn’t know where I was going. By […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ofbloodandbeauty\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}