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The Berlin European Championships in athletics are approaching. It will be the third occasion I will go to the Olympiastadion: the first was in July 1994, for an NFL preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and the San Diego Chargers. I had just started working and that was my first Holiday paid by myself.
When I landed in Tegel, on the bus to the city, I began to get into the game mood: I met a group of youngsters from Frankfurt with symbols of the Galaxy, the team of what I believe it was still called International Football League and later became NFL Europe. I had heard of the great popularity of that team: Frankfurt had become the European capital of American football. I certainly did not imagine that I would go to live there and that, 21 years later, I would see how the passion was still alive, even with a lower level team. The boys had a bag full of bottles of a fruit spirit (you know, there were no restrictions on liquids at that time): they offered me one, then another, then another again. If I'm not wrong we got to 7 each.
Alcohol was quite a constant of that trip: I remember I was drinking continuously to keep warm. In fact, the week before I read of temperatures around 30 degrees, so I had brought only summer clothes, only with a jacket in case of an elegant evenings. Once there I found 14-15 degrees and strong wind!
Back to sport events, before the NFL game they played the final of the European Junior Championship (under 20, if I remember correctly) between Germany and Finland. The game was heòd Maifeld, the camp of Nazi gatherings: it was nice to see him occupied by a "gathering" of a different kind. On Hitler's podium there was the sponsor, Gatorade: a sign of the times. The Germans expected to celebrate the victory of the home team, instead Finland won quite clearly, thanks above all to a very short, aggressive defense.
We then moved to the Olympiastadion for the game. I remember I was in a quite high position. I do not remember much of the game, let alone the result, even though I'm almost sure that San Francisco won. I was especially curious to see how impressive NFL tackles were, seeing them live: I discovered that from that distance you didn't feel the intensity of the hit, but you understood it indirectly from the speed with which the tackled got to the ground. I noticed the same effect at the Super Bowl, 20 years later. I'm not talking about Pro Bowl, which is almost flag football.
Five months later we discovered that we had seen a preview of the Super Bowl, also won by San Francisco. Star of San Diego was Junior Seau, who later died suicidal. 15 years later I would return to the Olympiastadion for another sport.
But we'll talk about this next time ...
The Berlin European Championships in athletics are approaching. It will be the third occasion I will go to the Olympiastadion: the first was in July 1994, for an NFL preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and the San Diego Chargers. I had just started working and that was my first Holiday paid by myself.
When I landed in Tegel, on the bus to the city, I began to get into the game mood: I met a group of youngsters from Frankfurt with symbols of the Galaxy, the team of what I believe it was still called International Football League and later became NFL Europe. I had heard of the great popularity of that team: Frankfurt had become the European capital of American football. I certainly did not imagine that I would go to live there and that, 21 years later, I would see how the passion was still alive, even with a lower level team. The boys had a bag full of bottles of a fruit spirit (you know, there were no restrictions on liquids at that time): they offered me one, then another, then another again. If I'm not wrong we got to 7 each.
Alcohol was quite a constant of that trip: I remember I was drinking continuously to keep warm. In fact, the week before I read of temperatures around 30 degrees, so I had brought only summer clothes, only with a jacket in case of an elegant evenings. Once there I found 14-15 degrees and strong wind!
Back to sport events, before the NFL game they played the final of the European Junior Championship (under 20, if I remember correctly) between Germany and Finland. The game was heòd Maifeld, the camp of Nazi gatherings: it was nice to see him occupied by a "gathering" of a different kind. On Hitler's podium there was the sponsor, Gatorade: a sign of the times. The Germans expected to celebrate the victory of the home team, instead Finland won quite clearly, thanks above all to a very short, aggressive defense.
We then moved to the Olympiastadion for the game. I remember I was in a quite high position. I do not remember much of the game, let alone the result, even though I'm almost sure that San Francisco won. I was especially curious to see how impressive NFL tackles were, seeing them live: I discovered that from that distance you didn't feel the intensity of the hit, but you understood it indirectly from the speed with which the tackled got to the ground. I noticed the same effect at the Super Bowl, 20 years later. I'm not talking about Pro Bowl, which is almost flag football.
Five months later we discovered that we had seen a preview of the Super Bowl, also won by San Francisco. Star of San Diego was Junior Seau, who later died suicidal. 15 years later I would return to the Olympiastadion for another sport.
But we'll talk about this next time ...
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