Sports
Sportsmen

Europe's Principal Game: Fussball in Germany (1989)

What baseball, football and basketball are in sum to America, fussball and only fussball, or soccer, is to Germany, which is to say the sport of sports for most months of the year. The season begins in September and runs through May with games every Saturday afternoon, beginning at 2:00 p.m. or, sometimes, 4:00 p.m.; and if you have any taste for exquisite sports, there is no better way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Now that professional outdoor soccer has gone from America, you must go abroad to see world-class play.

In Germany, as in America, there is a big league and a minor league, each with sixteen teams, called respectively the Bundesliga and the Zweite (Second) Bundesliga; but rather than being farm teams, as in baseball here, those in the second league are independent operations. What happens is this: At the end of every season, the four teams with the worst records in the top league drop down for the following year to the second league, whose four best teams rise to take their place. This process of recomposition is repeated annually and indefinitely. There as here, there is a difference in quality of play between the leagues, but in Germany those at the bottom of the standings will soon be minor league.

In every major German city, there is a stadium; everyone knows where it is. The question for the visitor is whether the local team will be playing at home or away. (In some cities, such as Berlin or Köln, there are two teams that use the single stadium in alternation; therefore, someone is always home.) Simply show up at the stadium thirty minutes before game time. Except near the end of the season, when successful clubs might be competing for top spots in the standings, you can usually get tickets at game time. Remember that fussball, like American football (but unlike baseball), is played in all weather and that the stadium is usually accessible by public transportation, which is considerably less of a nuisance than a private car.

As German games commence punctually, it would be a good idea to get settled a few minutes before. You can bring a thermos of tea (but no alcohol any more); but if you want food, you must go back under the stadium's seats. Because the two 45-minute periods of soccer are stopped only for injury and for a single fifteen-minute intermission, it is wise to take care of personal business before the game begins. Because the game is continuous, German fans tend not to talk during the game, except for cheers; it is not like baseball, which is very much designed for nearly continuous spectator conversation, as well as eating and drinking.

German teams are owned by clubs that also field squads of younger players--12-13, 14-15, 16-17--and thus become a kind of school. The clubs are siftungs, or foundations, whose board of directors are local dignitaries and sports enthusiasts; some clubs are a century old. (The closest American semblance would be the Green Bay Packers.) As the on-field coach is accountable only to the board of directors, he is pretty much the king of the hill; nothing is comparable to George Steinbrenner, the intrusive owner, in German soccer. Perhaps because the teams are publicly owned, the Bundesliga has not yet discovered the gimmick of playoffs, or highly profitable games after the regular season (that customarily attract full houses because of their putative importance). Simply, whoever has the best record of wins and losses at the end of a season is declared the best team.

Where to sit? There is a question that prompts long debate. The idea is to follow not only the ball but where it might be passed. Some fans think that best seat is in the middle, perhaps twenty rows up from the field, because from there all the action is visible. Others think that the best seat is behind the goalie, because from there you can see the movements leading to a score if, perchance, it happens on your end of the field.

One difference between America and Europe is that local games are not televised; therefore, the only way to see them is at the stadium. Saturday fans in Germany getting home by 6:05 p.m can see Die Sportschau that offers highlights from select Bunsdesleague games in the course of a fifty-five minute national program. What is completely televised, usually in the middle of the week, are special nonleague games, such as one between the German national team and the Austrian national team, or between a West German club champion and an East German champion. See one of these, and you'll be grateful for the absence of the interruptive commercials that plagued American soccer coverage.

The thing to remember is that fussball is a game of teamwork and thus of passing; and because so few scores are made, compared say to basketball or even to hockey, it also depends upon lapses in defensive discipline. Therefore, fans pay rapt attention, for fear of missing that moment that would open an opportunity to score. As the score becomes possible, a cheer begins, becoming louder when the point is actually registered.

What makes Europe different from the United States is that people living only a few miles apart often speak a different language and observe different rules of behavior. The common opinion is that the most violent fans are the British and the Dutch. Especially if their team loses, they are liable to damage a stadium or the public transportation adjacent to the stadium with a vengeance that belies our sense of them as essentially European people. For important international games, Europeans are also liable to fill the stands to excess, creating the horrible accident that killed scores of people in Belgium only a few years ago. For most German league games, where the stadium is customarily less than full, the departing crowd is no less peaceful than that at, say, an American baseball game.

For the literate fan, there are illustrated programs hawked at the game, each portraying the home team. In addition to sports sections in most newspapers, there is a weekly magazine devoted exclusively to soccer; and bookstores are stocked with memoirs by the currently famous players. As I don't read German, I can only report that in Germany nothing is comparable to our own Sports Illustrated for elaborate profiles. If you go to a game with a local fan, he or she can give you elaborate background information on the team and the individual players, their careers and strengths and weaknesses, much as any baseball fan can do here.

One charm of fussball is its simplicity. The few rules are traditional and international; there is nothing comparable to the sophistication of baseball or the continual tinkering that happens in, say, American football. Scores are made by putting the inflated ball into the netted box at the ends of the pitch. Toward this end, players use their feet and sometimes their heads; they are forbidden to use their hands. If they err, the ball is placed on the ground for the other team to possess. If one team kicks the ball out of bounds, a member of the opposing team is invited to put it into play. If a defender's legs get an attacker's legs without touching the ball, a foul is called, and the attacker is again awarded possession.

If the foul is particularly flagrant, the referee may on his own discretion issue a yellow card to the offender. If a player gets two yellow cards during a game, he is ejected, and his team is forced to play with one less man. For grossly fragrant violations, the referee can issue a red card, which carries automatic ejection and suspension from the succeeding game. Once a player is removed from the game, he cannot return; each team begins with only six substitutes.

The players roughly divide into attackers, midfielders and defenders, with three or five of the first, five or three of the second, and two of the last, plus one goalie who is allowed to use his hands. So his actions won't be confused with those of the other players, his uniform differs from that of his team. The images of their jerseys is usually a logo from a commercial product that contributes money to the team in exchange for such advertising.

A strategic innovation introduced by Hamburg only a few years ago has a defender occasionally streaking forward to attack the goal and upsetting the defense precisely because his presence was not expected. (Bobby Orr developed a similar defenseman move in hockey.) Even to the untrained eye, it becomes obvious which players are the stars. They are not necessarily bigger or faster than their teammates. Quite simply, they are the guys with the greater foot dexterity, the guys to whom the others pass as the team approaches the goal; for within the framework of team discipline, there is a lot of opportunity for individual exquisiteness.

One quality I find unique to fussball is that, precisely because it is so hard to score, it is possible to be outplayed for most of the game and still win. That is, it is possible for the other team to be continually attacking, for the ball to be mostly in front of your goal posts; but if your team has managed to score, perhaps because of some defensive lapse, while theirs has not, you win. The best example of this disparity in my memory was the concluding game of the World Cup in 1974, when Holland consistently outplayed West Germany and yet lost 1-0.

After the game, as impatient fans rush home, the cognoscenti adjourn to a pub near the stadium where they can drink beer and discuss at leisure the players and the coach. As soccer games rarely last more than two hours, there is the rest of the afternoon for remembering.