Joy and Sorrow Side by Side
There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” What did yours used to say to you? What about this one: “So, let’s sit down and take stock.” If it was the last day of play, he might well have.
And with the 34th Bundesliga match-day now history, it’s time for all the trainers and all the teams to sit down and look back at the season. In the changing rooms after the matches, some teams were celebrating their successes, others mourning over their failures: often in the same stadium. In Berlin’s Olympiastadion, for example, the capital’s team – already unable to escape relegation – played against the champions Bayern München. Bayern went ahead and won 3:1, receiving the cup after the final whistle; Berlin could only look on.
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Tastes have changed. Before, it was your Formula 1 racing-drivers that got the girls; it was all fast cars, fast guys and even faster babes. You had drivers like Jackie Stewart, Nelson Piquet, Jody Scheckter, and Mario Andretti – proper playboys for the tabloid press. Nowadays, though, your average Formula 1 racer is nothing more than a boy without the play, the kind of clean-shaven goody-two-shoes you could introduce to your maiden aunt: just look at Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton. Not one of them has even a whiff of scandal on them – boring!
The relationship between players and fans in the Bundesliga is simmering just below boiling point this season. After Hannover’s goalkeeper Robert Enke, suffering from a severe depression and trying to hide it from public view, ended up committed suicide in November of last year, Bundesliga officials, players and fans have been talking a lot about developing an atmosphere of respect, care and recognition – but these last six months have not seen these words become reality.
Teams in the Bundesliga don’t appear see things that way, though. Neither record-holders Bayern München, nor the gutsy Schalke 04, nor even title contenders Bayer Leverkusen were able to win their away games on match day 27.
Imagine an exiting football season. Now double that excitement. And now add a mind-boggling plotline à la