“It’s Football Day”

That was the first thought in my head as I woke up on Saturday Morning, live football was actually back. No more replays of past World Cup matches or ‘Premier League Years’ for me this weekend. Admittedly, I had rather limited knowledge and past experience of watching the Bundesliga, however this was still exciting. Aside from the exceptions of Belarus and the K-League, this was the start of football’s return and I was ready. I’d read up on the teams, done various online quizzes to find ‘My Bundesliga Club’ and everything felt positive. However, watching some of the matches, I found myself thinking that it just didn’t feel quite right. I remember watching Manchester United in the Europa League days before the lockdown took hold and thinking it had a less competitive feeling without fans, and that same feeling occurred over the weekend.

But then after about half an hour, I thought “it’s this or nothing”. There are obvious changes to the way football is presented for the time being, and likely the future, but if you gave me this or nothing, I’d take this every single time. That feeling of watching some live, top-quality European football has been missed by millions, and this satisfied that craving even in the new ‘socially distanced’ style. I think the Bundesliga return should NOT impact any decisions made for the Premier League this season, as our country is in a much worse state that Germany appears to be when looking at the stats, but when countries are ready to return, this could be the blueprint for others to follow. Unless of course, there has been any infection and risk from this weekend which puts everything back to square-one, but for now there’s optimism.

Just maybe not quite for the Premier League yet.

You’ve Got No Fans

So what actually changed over the weekend, and did it really impact the teams and viewing experience. Well starting off, Bundesliga 2 side Dynamo Dresden had their match cancelled after 2 players tested positive for the virus, resulting in the whole squad and staff going into isolation. This just shows that things are a long way off being perfect, and further incidents such as this will undoubtedly raise further questions about the process of football returning, adding in delays and potentially unnecessary risk.

For the top division, things seemed to go fairly smoothly. There were some major adaptations to the matches but players, coaches and viewers from home seemed fairly content and understanding of the alterations.

The first key change was FANS. Of course, nobody expected there to be any fans inside the stadium as that would have been ridiculously risky to everyone, but having no match atmosphere really did impact on the matches. As a viewer, it took me out of the experience of watching football, and meant most games lacked the competitive edge. Without thousands of fans cheering goals, or urging their team to push forward things felt more calm and less urgent. Admittedly, as I am not a supporter of these teams, I might have felt different if I was watching my club playing, but from a neutral spectator point of view, things appeared less competitive. Although I am not a player, and so can’t actually provide any knowledge from inside the stadium (although every game I’ve played has had no fans watching), some players seemed to miss the support of their fans being in attendance. Take, for example Haaland’s goal for Dortmund, having social distanced celebrations with team mates and no fans to celebrate with arguably took away some of the joy of the goal. Dortmund choosing to celebrate at full-time in front of their empty stand demonstrated that the players were aware of the missing support and how this can affect the game on the pitch.

The second change was in terms of the socially distanced CELEBRATIONS. Like many watching at home, I could not understand the logic in this. I understand that contact needs to be limited between everyone on the pitch, however players were going into tackles, spitting, and having moments where they were mm apart during free-kicks and corners. Therefore, to not allow the players to celebrate together didn’t seem to make too much sense and hopefully this will be altered relatively soon.

Finally, the only other major change that I personally noticed was the SUBS BENCHES and coaching staff safety precautions. I think all clubs were successful in choosing to use protective facemasks off the pitch and moving subs benches and coaching staff further apart to maintain distancing. Those ideas are something that I think will remain in place for the foreseeable future, and I can fully understand this and didn’t really impact on the match itself. However, on several occasions, the socially distanced players would go and warm up/stretch together in groups which slightly counteracted the point of staying apart. But on the whole these changes seemed positive and safe for everyone.

With those changes, the games themselves certainly had a different and unique feeling to them. As mentioned, the matches lost a sense of competitiveness at times, however that could be a personal opinion and perhaps watching my team play in those conditions could change my mind. Generally, I think the league did everything they could to keep players apart and safe without taking away any key features of the on-field game.

On-Field

On the pitch, things seemed back to reality for most clubs. Bayern and Dortmund both won fairly comfortably, Haaland got himself onto the scoresheet for the 10th time in just 9 games, putting aside any speculation of any ‘ring rust’. Bayern continuing to win means they are still 4 points clear at the top, with Lewandowski matching a record matched only by Ronaldo and Messi of 40 goals in 5 consecutive seasons.

Mönchengladbach maintain pressure on the top two by winning 3-1, while RB Leipzig dropped 2 points in their 1-1 draw with Freiburg.

Down at the bottom, Düsseldorf and Paderborn played out a 0-0 draw and Werder Bremen will look to capitalise in tonight’s fixture in a tricky match against Leverkusen.

Kick Starting Football?

So where do we stand with the current state of football. Ultimately, the next few hours and days will give us a complete picture of the weekend and any cases that could arise from the events of the last few days. On the whole, it appeared to be a success, the action on the field was as normal as could be expected (despite the ‘questionable’ celebration distancing). The game is a contact sport and so even thinking of removing that would have been impossible, but the steps that were taken to distance subs benches and the staff working inside the stadium seemed positive. The atmosphere is certainly a key loss to the sport, and watching Dortmund for example did feel more like a training match without the ‘Yellow Wall’, but even with those changes, we got live football back, and I think Germany have a clear strategy for the future.

Should football return in England, we as fans we need to embrace the changes that will come with this. Even though the same players will be on the pitch, and the action on-field will resemble what we all know and love, we have to accept the ‘training match atmosphere’, even if it doesn’t quite feel as exciting. If we are able to watch our teams play every week, without fans, that is still major progress and should be recognised. It’s not the same, but it potentially could be that, or back to the Euro 96 replays for a long time.

Personally, if the Premier League is unable to return, I am more than okay with that, partly because my team aren’t risking a title/relegation, but mainly because I think the Premier League (and various other part of this country) has lacked cohesion and strong leadership for a long time and so trying to rush something as drastic as this is not a smart move. Although German football returning gives hope to the Premier League, let’s not forget that the total virus related deaths are 4x higher in the UK than they are in Germany, that needs to be addressed before trying to ‘replicate’ the Bundesliga. Additionally, any incident such as the positive tests at Dynamo Dresden would just further add to delays and confusion which, English football are not very good at adapting to. Instead, ending the season and making decisions on titles/relegations/European qualification sooner, can allow everyone some more time to plan for the future. Take the short term loss of football for this season, and make concrete ‘safe’ plans for the next 5-10 years. Protect the players, protect the clubs and protect football (that’s my ‘Johnson-esque’ nonsense quote).

As I finish up writing this, apparently the vote has passed for Premier League clubs to return to training this week in small groups. Whether this leads to further progress in a few weeks of actual games going ahead, we will wait and see. But in the meantime I’m going to embrace all the delights of the Bundesliga, until this country sorts out some kind of a plan.

Danke, Auf Wiedersehen.