On a quick business trip to Germany, what else is there to do but this: go straight from the airport to the hotel, drop bags, and then immediately make one's way via subway to an early Saturday soccer match.
The venue was Allianz Arena, home of Evil Empire Bayern-Munich, but today hosting a second division showdown between hometown 1860 (the "Lions") and the unpronounceable Greuther Furth ("GF"). It was my first live Bundesliga experience, and it was interesting.
Allianz Arena is about 20 minutes by train from the center of town. It was easy to find by packing into a U-Bahn car filled with beered, boisterous, and singing Germans wearing 1860's powder-blue strip. You emerge from the train station and follow the crowd for about 3/4 of a mile. The stadium is perched atop a hill (actually a man-made plinth covered in grass containing parking garages).
It all seems impressive, but when you get up close the arena proves to be somewhat disappointing: a monument to concrete, with dark unpleasant concourses and an industrial feel--very much like RFK, in fact. Come to think of it, to the extent the stadium is a utilitarian concrete facility in a semi-remote location and lacks much warmth or charm, it most resembles FedEx field. The seating bowl is excellent, however, right up on the field and steep.
The concessions boast one of the finest collections of sausages one could hope to witness in one place. I leave it up to each reader to determine individually whether that is a good or bad thing.
The first half was all GF, with the Lions bunkering and playing painfully boring soccer. I'd forgotten that Baltimore native Kenny Cooper recently moved there. He was fairly ineffective and subbed out at the half. A number of German kids were wearing his jersey, however, so he can't be that bad.
The second half was the opposite, with the home team seizing control of the match. We had an early goal scored from the run of play, a red card, and a penalty shot in the 90th minute. Good times:
The supporters clubs occupied each end of the stadium, and sung and jumped around the whole time. (These people have special songs for individual players, for god's sake.) Along the sidelines where I sat, it was very quiet, much like RFK's quiet side, only the Germans seemed to be both more intensely watching the game and more morose. Also, being surrounded by smokers in the stands was a novel--and smelly--experience.
As for the quality of play, especially in comparison to MLS, it's impossible to generalize from one match. Naturally, I will do so anyway. Both teams were well organized tactically, and employed a lot of dynamic interchanges and team movements. The ball skills of many of the individual players were disappointing, to be honest, and there was an awful lot of bad fouling. I've seen better and worse MLS games. On the whole, however, due to the really solid team play and 100% total commitment of each and every player to the game for each moment of the match, you got the impression that the overall quality was a bit above what we see on a regular basis. Take that for what it's worth, which is not much.
Oh, by the way, rumor has it that there's a cage match of sorts tonight at RFK. Still am hoping to find a way to watch it and blog about it . . . .
More Pics:
Good supporters' groups:
The Mascot:
Check out the security outside the stadium:
The train station leaving:
Sweet. My envy is deep.
You spared yourself a night of aargh back here.
Posted by: BDR | September 13, 2009 at 08:28 AM