Thursday, May 24, 2012

FC Bayern... Stern des Südens

The year’s biggest moment in soccer, the Champions League Final between Bayern and Chelsea, took place here in Munich last weekend.  For those that don’t follow soccer, this is essentially the Superbowl of soccer, with the best competitors from all of Europe.  Adding to the drama was that this was the first time the host city has had their team made it to the final match, and get to compete in their home stadium.  Since FC Bayern had already written history with the first ‘home field’ advantage, all the odds were in their favor to write the perfect story book ending.  But they fell short in the end, losing the championship in the most dramatic of fashions.  Here goes our experience of it all.

As spring turned winter, it seemed FC Bayern had a reasonable chance to go far in the tournament- they were playing well and received some luck with the matchup draws.  People started to dream about FC Bayern playing at home in the finals, but I don’t think many really expected it to happen.  Then by a stroke of luck, they beat out the favored Real Madrid in the semi-finals in a penalty kick shootout (an important detail). They made it to the finals, and would play in Munich!  Given the impossibility of buying tickets to the final (only 7,000 out of 62,500 tickets were even sold to the general public through a lottery that we did not win), we secured tickets for one of the main public viewings held on the Oktoberfest grounds.

On the day of the match the energy amongst the public was incredible.  Everyone, true Bayern fan or not, was outside walking around, engaging with each other, and wearing Bayern red.  It reminded me of the old Houston ‘clutch city’ days around ’94-95 where the whole city just came to life.  After fighting our way through crowds for a few hours, we decided to head back home and rest up for the big show.


The kick-off was at 8:45 so we arrived at the public viewing around 7:15 for good measure.  There we were with 29,998 other people streaming through one entrance to cheer on the home team (tickets were limited to 30,000 – and they even sold out the same day!).  
Can you find us???

This was one of the densest crowds I have ever been in.  It took about 30 minutes to get through the gate, climbing through mounds of empty beer bottles (drinking beer in public is legal), and then we were greeted with about a 15 minute wait for the toilets.  


People were so fired up for Bayern, it was unbelievable.  We fought through the crowd and eventually found a decent spot for viewing the 800 square foot screen from about 100 yards out.  Nonetheless, it was a constant struggle the whole night to see the screen because taller people, often drunk and clueless, would post up in front of us.  The energy of the crowd made it all well worth it though.


The match seemed like all FC Bayern.  Clearly, Chelsea’s strategy was to stick back playing defense and hopefully get lucky on a rare counter attack on offense.  Unfortunately Bayern could not get any one of their one thousand shots to score.  As the game rolled on the crowd became even more dramatic, shrieking louder with every passing chance.  It seemed like destiny that Bayern would eventually break through.  And then finally they scored with around 10 minutes left in the match- a miraculous header goal by Thomas Mueller.  The crowd went absolutely crazy (including Julie and I).  I mean this was one of those celebrations you only read about.  First the people were jumping, then the smoke fire flares were lit, people were hugging picking each other up (our neighbor picked both of us up), and then out of nowhere fireworks were exploding over our heads.  It all felt like a dream in that moment and it felt like finally we reached our destiny.  

Here is a movie of the celebration - you can see at the 8 second mark the guy that picks her up and spins her around


Unfortunately, I have a feeling the Bayern players felt the same because only a few minutes later Chelsea snuck in a header goal of corner kick (I hate you Drogba).  The life of the crowd disappeared instantaneously.  That was the first heartbreak of the night. 


The game moved into overtime and the crowd slowly regained their optimism.  Bayern reestablished their control and the crowd started to believe again.  And then Bayern earned a penalty kick, a chance to retake the lead and avoid the ever dreaded tie-breaking penalty shootout.  Nope, the shot was blocked- heartbreak number two.  This time, people were angrier though.  Water bottles were being thrown and I know there were many German swear words being shouted.  Understandably so – great teams and great players do not miss penalty shots period.  The ever optimistic crowd recouped and the mindset became ‘we made it the finals on a penalty shootout, we can win the finals in a penalty shootout- no problem’.  
I wore my Lederhosen like a good Bavarian

The penalty shootout started and Bayern took the early lead.  The crowd could sense the title within reach again, but their luck eventually ran out.  Chelsea eventually took the victory in the penalty shootout (now, I really hate Drogba).  This was the third, and thankfully final, heartbreak of the night.  But this one really, really stung the crowd.  I mean it was absolutely numbing at how silent and still everyone became.  It was like we were all robbed of our destiny- anybody who watched the game would clearly notice that Bayern was the better team.  However, just like all sports, it is not always the best team who wins, but the one who plays their cards right and finds some luck to carry them through.  This it what makes soccer worth watching.  Although it was a huge disappointment to lose, this game will be remembered as one of the most exciting and memorable sporting matches I have ever seen.  

While everyone stood there deathly quiet, Julie and I took the opportunity to dash out of there.  I have read too many stories about soccer riots and I was not about to end up in the middle of something dangerous (although nothing did happen there or anywhere else in the city- just stunned silence).  After 5 hours of standing and screaming at the match, after 3 heartbreaks, and after a silent commute, we finally made it home about 1:00 in the morning.  We slept off our woes the next day and now we are all looking forward to the European championships this summer where the national teams compete (e.g., Germany vs Portugal).  We love soccer (well at least Julie pretends to for my sake)!