Bundesliga Fanatic

Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football, by Jonathan Wilson (@jonawils) In this book, Wilson tackles the perennial question of why Eastern European football isn’t very competitive with Western European, both at the club and national levels. Some things have changed since its publication in 2006, but, in general, the nations discussed—Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, [...]

The first time I literally cried with joy at a German sight was the first time I saw the Rhine in 2007. The second time was when I saw Timo Hildebrand at the concession stand at PPL Park in Philadelphia Wednesday night. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That sublime moment was just the pinnacle [...]

About a year ago, I made a spectacular blunder and decided to adopt Köln as my Bundesliga team. Since then I have become rather smitten with the old goats, but the incremental effect on their form has been negative; the more I watch, the worse they get. Well, that’s how it was at first, now [...]

Earlier this season Ansgar Löcke wrote about his road trip to watch Hannover play in the DFB pokal. This time around he documented his excursion to Denmark to watch Hannover play to FC Copenhagen in the Europa League. The whole idea of travelling to the match was already in my head when the draw was [...]

16 years is a long time to wait. I have been a Werder Bremen fan since the age of four. Wynton Rufer, Karl Heinz Riedle, Marco Bode and Mario Basler, they just bewitched me, and turned me into a football fanatic. Werder took a little boy’s heart, and it has never been returned. The devil, he [...]

What do you do when you’re an American girl hopelessly in love with a football team playing 5000 miles away and followed by people who speak a language you don’t? You fly across the ocean and join the party, of course. I could have made it easy on myself by enjoying a sport actually popular [...]

Hannover 96 fan Ansgar Löcke makes his debut on the Bundesliga Fanatic telling our readers about his road trip to see his favorite team play Anker Wismar in the first round of the DFB pokal. „The cup has its own rules.“ No other team could agree more to that saying in the last years than Hannover [...]

Day Two of the Bundesliga Fanatic Road Trip began in Kansas City Tuesday morning.  It was a fun day, highlighted by the CONCACAF Gold Cup doubleheader at the new LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, meeting Bundesliga vets Steve Cherundolo and Jermaine Jones along with many fans of the beautiful game.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The first of hopefully many annual Bundesliga Fanatic roadtrips began last Monday.  Contributor Kurt Duncan and I headed from the St. Louis area in the morning across the state of Missouri to Kansas City for the CONCACAF Gold Cup doubleheader at the brand new LIVESTRONG Sporting Park featuring Canada – Panama and the USA-Guadeloupe.  Wearing two hats, I was also [...]