Peter Nowak is a professional who likes to crack jokes. Asked by a European journalist if any Major League Soccer team can compete with the squads in the German Bundesliga, a wide smile appears on the face of the Polish midfielder and former star of 1860 Munich.
“Sure, Washington and L.A. could easily play in the Bundesliga. And Fire, too, of course,” Nowak says.
What the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Fire presented before 37,122 fans at Soldier Field on Saturday definitely was not the quality of Germany’s top class. At times, it wouldn’t even qualify for second division.
“Some MLS teams play very roughly and have not many ideas,” Nowak says. But actually it isn’t the action on the field that is the main difference between the MLS and European soccer, it’s in the stands.
Observing the MLS is like being part of a family picnic.
There’s not the slightest threat of the brawling inferno inside the stadiums in Germany. Fans arrive in club colors an hour before the game. Teams get 5,000 or 10,000 for away games.
What I saw in Soldier Field is the kind of soccer some managers in the Bundesliga want: family-friendly entertainment. For a goal, the fans stand up and applaud. The rest of the game, they are almost quiet.
For me, it was a kind of nightmare, and I hope the managers never have success.
During the World Cup in France, I accompanied a football fan named Bernd and reported how he saw the games. When Austria played, he pulled an Austrian flag out of his window and kept his fingers crossed, as if the Germans kicked. Why? Austria’s striker, Toni Polster, was the star of Bernd’s favorite club FC Cologne. “I have to support him, you understand,” he told me.
Soccer means passion for fans like Bernd, pure emotion, part of their culture. A smell of beer and cigarettes is typical on the stands. In Soldier Field a voice tells you that smoking is forbidden. Welcome to a sweet show, welcome to sugar-free cola, huge crisps running over the pitch and strange entertaining games like overweight supporters dribbling around Subway advertisements.
There’s a certain kind of aggression in a Bundesliga stadium too. If old rivals meet each other, it is also a problem of safety. During the last Bundesliga-game of FC Cologne against Bayer Leverkusen about 500 police officers were on duty, a precaution because of the so-called hooligans. The only officers around Soldier Field are traffic cops.
It’s around the 70th minute, when Fire defender Francis Okaroh suddenly sinks to the ground. While his teammates are desperately trying to turn the game around, he’s just lying there, two meters beside the sideline. In Bundesliga fans would go crazy, boo and shout. Meanwhile, Soldier Field is as quiet as a graveyard. The man behind me orders a hot dog.
“We have no real soccer atmosphere here,” Peter Nowak complains.
In Germany, there is a group of blind soccer fans. They can’t see tacklings, fouls or goals. But they experience the game as part of the shaking crowd.
If they plan to see the Fire at Soldier Field, they may miss the game.
