Quirky football trips – windy presidents, pauses for thirds and cannibal chants – football

BamS chief reporter Matthias Marburg is a groundhopper. Means: He wants to see as many soccer games as possible. And that in as many countries as possible. It’s not always about seeing kicks in the top leagues. It’s about the experience. And sometimes about breaking out of the world of completely choreographed events in their interchangeable arenas.

He is currently in 89 countries and has visited every continent for football. The long-term goal is to see a game in all 211 Fifa member territories.

Here Marburg tells his favorite stories from 14 years of ground hopping.

Things are a little different in soccer

New England versus San José with Landon Donovan in Boston, before that a bit of women’s soccer with Maren Meinert and the Boston Breakers in the same stadium. That was the plan. However, the gentlemen were just the foreplay. I only saw 20 minutes of her kick, and 90 minutes of the main women’s football event.

It got historic in the Faroe Islands

Vikingur Gota had never won the championship – until 2016. The club has only been around since 2009, but there was still a lot of celebrations in northern Europe after the final whistle. A space storm with a lot of pyrotechnics included. Incidentally, the players worked hard to ignite.

Cancellation due to rain – in Scotland!

If anyone plays in all weathers, it’s the Scots. I thought. Until the game Dundee against Hamilton. That was canceled due to rain. Two hours before kick-off – that hadn’t happened in 18 years before. The next day I read in the newspaper that Hamilton was asking the league for the travel money back.

The away fan was more exciting than the game

The Belarusian first division club FC Isloch brought exactly ONE fan to the game in Minsk. But what a one! The man – apparently intoxicated – crawled, jumped, fell down three steps, got to his feet, and went on. 90 minutes long. Unfortunately, the success was not granted to him: Minsk scored 1-0 in the last second.

I became a soccer hero in Tibet

My tourist guide had misunderstood something! I just wanted to watch – but when we got to the pitch, a coach was waiting for me. With a jersey in hand! So I had to go. No fun at 3600 meters above sea level. Still, I met twice and gave an assist. And helped with a premiere: the first victory of my team (in fake Real jerseys) against the other (in fake Man United shirts).

Malaysia: cigarette in the third breaks

During my visit to Kuala Lumpur there was no pro game scheduled so it had to be a lower league. How did you notice that? The pitch was crooked, the players stout and the referee simply introduced third breaks – after every 30 minutes played. Why? Because he wanted to smoke.

The Aussie cab driver drove me crazy

During my visit to Melbourne, I wanted to join the Knights. My taxi driver nodded hard at the stadium name. And drove me to the wrong place – a cricket stadium. I got nervous at the second wrong stadium, really angry at the third. In the end, the man cost me around 40 minutes of the game.

President makes the fans wait

The kick in the police stadium in Colombo / Sri Lanka was supposed to start at 3:30 p.m., but was postponed by almost an hour because the president’s helicopter was on the grass. During the game, a police unit next to the field did gymnastics exercises – it was more action than on the field.

Kicking off? “At 16 o’clock. Approximately”

In Accra / Ghana I saw my first game in Africa. When asked when it starts, I was told: “4 pm. But that’s just a guideline, we’ll start when it’s not too hot anymore. ”The game kicked off at around 4:20 pm – and it was extremely heated. So heated that soldiers had to drag crazy supervisors from the square.

First food, then kick off

Before the game on the island of Anguilla, Association President Raymond Guishard welcomed us to the Raymond Guishard Stadium (photo) and showed us photos of the meeting with Fifa boss Infantino. We had time, the kick-off was delayed. Because one of the teams was waiting for their eighth player. He just came back from the shift, had to finish eating at the seat, then we could play.