Sports doesn’t take breaks! And apparently neither do I…
Even though it is Christmas break at university I still managed to keep up with sports, both on TV and live in the arena. During my visit home to Germany, I went to a Bonn Baskets game against Bayern Munich. The Baskets were not playing in their usual arena, but were hosting from the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, to allow the all time record attendance for an ‘Easy Credit BBL’ game.
This game was set up to be a pre-christmas spectacle, with the main sponsor of the home team (Telekom) gifting all fans an exclusive T-Shirt to wear during the game, promising to donate 1000 Euros per 3-pointer the Baskets scored to BasketballAid – a charity that supports kids with cancer.
The atmosphere here was a little different to the one I experienced in Madrid. Maybe due to the general good mood before the holidays or because the Lanxess Arena was sold out but the fans knew how to party. The lineups were announced in a crazy fashion, with a lightshow and confetti canons going off once the ball drop had been completed.
The first quarter started poorly for the home side. They were fouled quite a bit and still did not manage to convert many points, with the final score at the break being 09:23. The second quarter allowed them to catch up with the guests from Munich a little bit, but the Bavarians were quite strong (27:40).
The third quarter made clear that Bonn was now desperate to catch up and willing to do anything to stop the guests. Sadly this ended up not working out for them, with many fouls being called against them. In fact, the first quarter was the only one that the Munich players committed more fouls than the home side. The third quarter ended with a score of 39:53.
The last quarter started very slow in comparison to the first three. Many missed baskets and free throws, however in the last 15 minutes both teams locked in and managed to score a few more points for their respective sides. The final score ended up being 55:81, Bayern Munich unsurprisingly remaining on top of the table against the midrange team from North Rhein Westphalia.
It was really interesting to witness the differences in leagues and atmospheres, to experience more of a fan perspective after having been to so many games and matches as a professional recently. And it was my first basketball game in Germany.
