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.
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!).
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| 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’.
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| 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)!
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