The Fussball Layer

This is the Stuttgart Kickers complex, a 3rd division team.
Us after the 2nd day of training.

In Europe the soccer is organized differently than the states. Most towns have a soccer club. The club has youth teams at various age groups and a "first team". The first team plays other first teams in their division. There are 10 or so divisions, it depends on the country. If you win your division, you move up a league, if you are at the bottom you are relegated and move down. The first division teams you watch on tv and have huge stadiums. They have lots of money to buy good players. The lower divisions have smaller, but loyal, followings and less money to buy good players, but raise good players in their youth system. Most of the lower divisions have a game field, a few practice fields and a clubhouses with offices, locker rooms and a restaurant.

In Germany, the camp Joe and I worked was organized by the church but used FV Zuffenhausen’s practice field. After camp one day we saw a team warming up. We asked to train with them and they agreed. It was a company team in a non-official league. They were all engineers from the company that makes the train system in Germany (they were 2nd in their league to IBM). We had a good conversation with them after practice.

In the same way we practiced with FV Zuffenhausen the next day. They were a 6th division team and pretty good. Very smart, skilled players. Ages ranged from 19 year olds who were on their way up divisions to late 30’s who were still enjoying playing, but at a lower level than when they were younger. The coach invited us back to practice the next day.

In Austria the 8 of us split between two teams one day, then two different teams the next day. We went back to the original teams the third day. For some graduated, jobless guys this was a tryout. For the others with college eligibility on the line it was merely a practice. For me, it was a practice as I’m not going to try to make it in the semi-pro circuit in Europe. I was at a 5th division team the first day, a 4th the next. The latter club had a team masseuse!

It was so cool to train with these teams. To see what a practice in Europe on a European team was like. We could get enough of what was going on to not always need a translation for what the coach was saying. Also, should you ever play with a team outside the US, always, always shake everybody’s hand when you first go into the locker room. If you follow the American style and keep to yourself until you get to know people everybody will think you are a cocky American. Thankfully, we were advised of this before we went by some of the international players on the Surge.