My First Bundesliga Game

Proof there was sun in Hamburg!

Over the weekend, I achieved a major goal: attending a Bundesliga game! As a fan of soccer, this was an absolute must. After talking about it for quite a while and waiting for the weather to be decent, my German surprised me by getting tickets for the 32nd (out of 34) game of the season: HSV vs. Wolfsburg. A majority of the games are played Saturday afternoon, but there's also a Friday game and two Sunday games. A Sunday evening game, with a 17:30 start was a great end to the weekend.

HSV (Hamburger SV aka Hamburger Sport-Verein) is holding fairly steady in the middle of the standings, but they have had moments of excellence. It's been important for them to play well lately because they were very close to making to to the Champion's League. But, sadly, they really haven't been playing that well.

The competitors are also holding strong in the middle of pack, but not quite as high as Hamburg. And, ironically, VfL Wolfsburg was the team who stayed at my hotel my first month in Hamburg. Talk about things coming full circle.

 We took the S-bahn the stadium. After buying a (sparkling!) water to chug on the way, we followed the masses on a path to the stadium instead of taking the shuttle. This was in addition to my two-hour walk earlier in the day, so my feet weren't happy. Plus, I think my German was also excited to get there and his stride is a little longer than mine.

It didn't take long for me and my bag to be checked since there were predominantly men in attendance.

"Do you have anything you're not supposed to have?"

"Nope." Smile.

I suppose with my pearls and trench coat I didn't fit the mold of the average soccer fan.

Before the teams took the field everyone stood and sang "Hamburg meine Perle" which was kind of awesome.

The first half got steadily more exciting with corner kicks, yellow cards, and awesome saves. It culminated in a HSV goal in the 45th minute! We were still cheering as the teams left the field.

I had hoped we wouldn't see any more goals at our end...but unfortunately, Wolfsburg scored midway through the second half. At least the scoring stopped there and we ended in a 1-1 tie.

We jumped out of our seats and made it on one of the first shuttles out. In a clever twist, they took us one station further than the one the walkers would head to. Very smart. There were also police all over, but it was a tame crowd.

Lastly, now that I'm not on a bus surrounded by HSV fans, I can say that I think HSV is really lucky they didn't lose that game. The other team had way more chances. Thankfully their offense wasn't that great, but sadly their defense was. The Wolfsburg defense was clearly quicker and more experienced than the HSV offense which struggled to get off a lot of shots.

However, I did enjoy seeing 5 yellow cards.

Observations:
-Outdoor stadium = smoking = people on either side of you will be smoking = gross
-Sporting events go so much quicker without TV timeouts.
-I basically knew two players and the name of the HSV coach. Can someone say unprepared?

*Bonus: This is my 200th post! Thanks for reading!