The Bundesliga resumed play on
Saturday. I can hear my friend Mark
Romero saying “Who cares? It’s soccer –
nobody cares”. Since sports fans in the
United States have been fed a steady diet of football, basketball, hockey and
baseball since the turn of the last century, he’s right. But none of those sports are playing right
now, are they? To fill that void, we’ve
been treated to grainy replays of significant historical games. I can finally say I’ve seen Don Larson’s
perfect game in the 1956 World Series, such is the magic of video tape. It’s fine to relive your team’s glory days,
especially if your team sucks now. Watching
replays is ok for the short term, but you already know the outcomes of the
games, so there’s no suspense, no drama.
In what I see as a dry-run for when
baseball starts in July [hopefully], the Bundesliga are playing their games
behind closed doors. The Germans have a
neat phrase for games without spectators.
They call them Geister Spiele –
“ghost games”. The teams came out of the
tunnel from the locker room one at a time instead of together. There were no team mascots, no little kids
accompanying the teams onto the field, no player introductions. Those players who weren’t on the field sat in
the empty stands, wearing masks while sitting the socially-acceptable six feet
apart. Players’ shouts were audible and
the sound of the referee’s whistle was almost deafening. There were what
sounded like “golf claps” whenever someone made a good play. Referees
whistles broke the silence. It was
strange to hear the whistle echoing around stadiums that were built to seat
40,000 people. Every now and then you
could hear a public address announcer, but there was no public to address.
No doubt, having fans in seats is a big
part of the appeal of watching a soccer game.
Unlike American sports where the spectators are kept at a distance from
the playing field, in the Bundesliga the spectators and the field are quite
close. As little use that I have for
fight songs in any sport, I admit I missed hearing the fans chanting and
singing their clubs’ songs. Sometimes
the home fans will light off smoke bombs and a smokey haze will cover the
field. The regular fans will be waving
their team flags, and beating their drums.
But there was none of that this weekend.
There were no fans to urge their teams to victory. If players needed a source of inspiration to
put forth an extra effort, they had to summon that inspiration from themselves.
Bundesliga teams, no matter how good
they are, have passionate fanbases who travel well. A custom I really like in the Bundesliga
comes when the games are over. In every
stadium, there is a section set aside for the visiting team. Regardless of the outcome, when the game is
over, the visiting team goes to the visitors’ section. If they win, the players show their
appreciation of the travelling fans, and vice versa. When they lose, the fans let them have it,
and the players stand there and take it.
They let their fans vent at them.
I don’t watch the English Premier League, La Liga, or any of the other
leagues, but perhaps they have the same custom.
Can you imagine such a thing in American sport? I can’t.
I missed that feature of the German game this weekend.
It goes to show how goal celebrations
are just for show. In a game where
points come less often than most baseball games, celebrations are in order when
somebody finally does score a goal.
After all, it is a game where only one player on each team is allowed to
use his hands. In normal times, there's yelling and jumping and dancing
around. Sometimes the goal scorer takes
off his shirt and gladly takes the yellow card that goes with it. They really play it up for the fans. This weekend, there was none of that. No crowd to play to. Once a goal was scored, there would be a
modest celebration, maybe a firearm bump between players. Not even a group hug. It was back to midfield, next kickoff.
The "acting" factor wasn't in
play this weekend. The one thing I don't
like about the men's game is flopping.
Italians do it a lot, as do teams from South America. At the slightest
touch, some players will fling themselves to the turf, act like they've been
shot, and hope the referee buys the act.
Most times the refs see through the bullshit act, but every now and then
it works. That's why some players keep
doing it. But with no fans to play to,
there was none of that nonsense.
Watching the Bundesliga this weekend
was like watching training sessions, except that the sides kept score and the
results counted in the standings. It was
strange, but at least it was live. In
the grand scheme of things, sports don’t matter but they are welcome diversion.
