Soccer – Essen vs Mönchengladbach

We’re not the biggest sports supporters in the world, but there’s something incredible about going to a live soccer game. To those of you who take this seriously, I know it’s called football in Europe. I’m South African, so to me it’s soccer. No offence meant.

Anyway, the last game we went to (which was also the first ever 😛 – I told you we’re not spots-people) was England vs Ukraine in 2012. Since we enjoyed that one so much, we simply had to see at least one game in Germany. Jan’s boss arranged a company event for the employees, which brought us to Essen stadium for this game.

Let me tell you, the executive boxes are amazing. I don’t think we could ever have experienced football from these luxury seats, had it not been for Jan’s boss. 🙂 We had a lovely meal, delicious dessert and yummy snacks to sustain us during the event.

And it was an event. Kayla had the most fun of anyone there. She jumped and danced the whole night, and even yelled ‘Rot Weiss Essen!’ at the top of her lungs with the rest of the supporters.

That’s probably the most noticeable difference between the England and Essen games. The English cheered so loudly that the ground vibrated with it, but the Essen Wrecking Crew did not stop cheering. Not once. They banged on drums and sang even through the halftime break, and only lost some volume in the last five or so minutes of the game. It was awesome.

The Mönchengladbach (no, I don’t know how to pronounce that!) team is a few leagues stronger than the Essen team. People who know about soccer told us the game was going to leave the Essen players as little more than bloodstains on the field. The running prediction was a 7-0 loss, so we didn’t expect much.

Turns out, the Essen players brought their A-game. They were in the lead for most of the match, until Mönchengladbach scored twice in the last 8 minutes to win 2-1. A huge difference from what was predicted.

Here are some highlights.

I even took a video for you, so you could experience the crowd as we did. Sorry for the quality of the video, I was contending with a dancing, bouncing three-year-old while recording.