Hamburg, Germany : WC Qualifier Germany vs. Finland

So we’ve been home for about a month now and I’m finally getting a chance to update you guys on our trip. I had hoped to make the blogging a more real time experience while we were there. Unfortunately, I was unable with work and family commitments. At any rate, here’s an update on our trip to Hamburg while we were visiting Germany.

Once we booked our trip to Germany, I immediately started looking into soccer games. As many of you know, I’m soccer crazy. Not sure where the hell it came from, but in the last 10 years it’s become an absolute obsession of mine. I think it has to do largely with my injuries and inability to play anymore. Hopefully that will change soon, but that’s a blog for another day.

Anyways back to the story. So I looked up the Bundesliga schedule before coming, as I wanted to go to a true authentic soccer game. In Europe, there is absolutely nothing like watching football there. I can’t explain it, it’s giving me cool chills as I type this. I think Bill Simmons said it the best “Combine the passion Americans have for Football, Basketball, Baseball, & Hockey and you have about 1/4 of the passion that exists in Europeans, and the rest of the world for that matter, for Soccer”.

I didn’t really have a game in mind largely due to our schedule not being planned out. All that I knew was that we were going no matter what. When we got about 2 weeks into our trip, we had knocked out a number of other commitments that allowed me to lock in a weekend to see a game. After doing some research, I found out that there was an international break for World Cup Qualifying during the only open weekend. All domestic clubs throughout Europe were on a break so the all-stars could represent their countries to qualify for 2010.

Eureka!!! Wouldn’t you know it. Germany had 1 qualifier left at home against Finland. At the time they were in first position in the group leading Russia by only 1 point. Before they played Finland they had to play Russia in Moscow. If they beat Russia they qualify for 2010. Here’s where the rub was. The tickets to Germany Finland weren’t cheap, $150 a pop. If I bought the tickets before the Russia game I could lock those prices in. If I bought them after the Russia game I was in jeopardy of watching the tickets rise sky high depending on the outcome. Why? Because a lose in Russia would mean that the Finland game was do or die and every Kraut under the sun would be lining up for tickets. If they won, they would qualify and they’d almost surely rest their all-stars, leaving me with $150 tickets to see the B squad.

So I rolled the dice and bought the tickets before the Russian game. The Russians were definitely favorites to win the match seeing that it was in Moscow. Unfortunately for me, they couldn’t hold off Germany and lost 1-0. Needless to say I was a little pissed, but I thought what the hell what’s done is done. We’ll have a good time anyways.

3 days following the Russian game we packed our stuff and headed to Hamburg. It was about 2 1/2 to 3 hours north of Eisenach. A map is below to give you a little perspective.

View Eisenach to Hamburg in a larger map

This was my 3rd trip to Germany. Before that I’d never been to Hamburg. What amazed me was that it was the 2 largest city in all the country. I’d never really thought much of going my other times in Deutschland. What a mistake, because it’s absolutely gorgeous. More on that later, back to the game.

We got in about 4 hours before the game and checked into our room. The hotel we were staying at was directly next to the main train station. What was crazy about that was that it was a den for hookers. Seriously, there must have been a hooker on every corner for 10 to 15 square blocks. Why you may be asking? Because prostitution in legal in Germany. There’s a couple of pictures below of the station:

About 1 hour before the game we decided to start making our way. When we got to the correct train the deck was completely packed. There were tons of people waiting for the next train to go to the game. When the train arrived it was a little mad. We were basically in the middle and were forced forward ,with the surge of football crazy krauts behind us, to the door. Thankfully we were able to get into the train but only barely. We were literally crammed in like Sardines. Pictures of Kristina’s despair and video below.

After surviving that madness, we made our way to the stadium. Below are some pictures and video of the walk.

After Kristina finished grabbing a beer we found our section. But something was wrong. Our section was on the first floor of the stadium. I was sure we were headed in the wrong direction. But no, we kept following the numbers getting closer and closer to the field. Not only the field, but the center of the field. I had to stop this insanity, of going in the wrong direction, at once. So I asked this nice gentlemen where we were sitting. He looked at our tickets,and point to 1 row off the field, on the 50 yard line. I almost fell over.

I’ve been to a number of sports events and never in my life did I have killer seats like these. It was ridiculous how close we were to the field. You could literally spit on the players if you wanted. I ,of course, opted to just yelling at them when they made bad plays.

Pictures and videos of the stadium and us during the game are below.

Not only did we score with Killer seats, Germany played all their star players. A couple of the big shots are below.

At half time Germany was losing 1-0. Pretty unbelievable. The tables did indeed, turn in their favor with about 2 minutes to injury time. I,fortunately enough, was filming when Lukas Podolski scored the equalizer. It was ridiculous. Enjoy the action.

The next day we decided to take a boat tour of Hamburg. According to our guide, Hamburg has the most bridges in all of Europe. It has more bridges than London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Venice combined, 2500+ in total. That’s a hell of lot of bridges. It makes for absolutely gorgeous scenery. I’ve run out of writing gas at this point, so I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures from that day and the tour.

2 Responses to “Hamburg, Germany : WC Qualifier Germany vs. Finland”

1. Chase says:

   November 24, 2009 at 4:23 pm

   Dude, don’t claim that the real time blog updates were due to work and family commitments. I attribute it to laziness. That being said…looks like it was an amazing time. I’m jealous.
2. Chase says:

   November 24, 2009 at 4:24 pm

   badass pictures as well.