Is Bayern’s dominance taking the fun out of football?

[Sumudica by Night]

Is Bayern’s dominance taking the fun out of football?

 

With success after success, is Bayern Munich’s staggering dominance taking the excitement out of watching football?

 

Permit me a short story would you?

 

Several months ago I was standing in my section at BMO Field waiting for kickoff between my hometown Toronto FC and an opponent whose name escapes me at the moment – Colorado Rapids maybe? In any event, I was minding my own business chatting idly with a friend when, from a few rows behind, I hear:

 

“FC Bayern huh? Well it must be pretty easy to support them.”

 

I immediately knew the comment was directed at me since I had worn my 1999-2001 red Stefan Effenberg shirt to the match that day. Now normally, my wits are quite sharp and I am able to reel off a snappy retort without much effort but in this instance I only managed to mutter something barely intelligible about it not being as easy as it sounds. I had nothing. Did I actually believe what this person had said? Was I, at that very moment, realising that I had a football fan identity crisis?

 

The so-called giant fish

 

There is a clear perception out there that Bayern are the giant fish in a very small German pond usually found in the form of a narrative that they maintain their domestic dominance by using their (relatively) limitless financial resources to cripple any opposition that makes an attempt to threaten their football hegemony.

 

This of course places Bayern as the overwhelming favourites to win the Bundesliga year in and year out and therefore makes supporting them not only an attractive option but also an incredibly easy one; everyone likes winning, right? Admittedly, I would be hard pressed to argue against there being at least some grains of truth to this but to suggest that it is quite as simple as that overlooks some fairly complex emotions.

 

At the risk of sounding extremely spoiled, Bayern’s 2011-12 season was, in relative terms, a disappointing one having come up just short in all of the competitions they played in.

 

Of course, it was the complete reverse a year later having won everything under the sun, and at the direct expense of domestic rivals Borussia Dortmund in every competition. It goes without saying that I was overjoyed that my club had won, however, where one would assume my support for the club would be staunchly reinforced, it actually went in the opposite direction.

 

A changing reality

 

As some of you know I am a both husband and a father and with these titles comes certain familial duties that often most times supersede watching football. My time and my money are earmarked for the more important things in life, which means cutting back on television channels or trips to the pub to watch Bayern on Saturday mornings. Additionally, I work part-time every other Saturday to supplement my normal income and my shifts bar me from watching over half of the matches live.

 

I want to make it abundantly clear that I resent absolutely none of it. Quite the opposite! I look forward to the day where I can lead a family rendition of Stern des Südens in my living room. It is just that the majority of Bayern’s league matches are played at a time that is at best personally inconvenient and at worst impossible for me to catch live, at least at this point in time.

 

Of course I do have the ability to view the matches after they have already been played but that does not always happen, especially when I know the final score. It is rather difficult to follow the team if you are relying on written match reports and highlight reels to keep you in the know.

 

A little something on the side?

 

It might be blasphemy to outright say, but I believe that fans’ relationships with their clubs are not monogamous, at least not all of the time. When one team may not be necessarily satisfying all of your needs you might slip and go astray for a short period of time. Over the last few seasons this is exactly what happened to me.

 

On occasion, I write for Bundesliga Fanatic as a quasi-reporter for SC Freiburg, among other things. When the team assignments were handed out, I missed out on Bayern. Since I need to present an air of expertise on the subject, my focus became more and more honed in on the day-to-day operations of the Breisgau Brasilianer and much less on Bayern. I soon began openly showing my support for SCF and would on occasion watch their matches instead of Bayern’s when they were both playing top flight football.

 

Tuning into live Freiburg matches became a whole lot easier once they were relegated. 2.Bundesliga matches are played on Friday afternoons, Sunday mornings, and the occasional Monday in addition to earlier kickoff times on Saturday. This also meant that there are far fewer conflicts with Bayern matches on the weekend and, in an ideal world, I would have the time to watch both teams instead of concentrating on just one. Unfortunately that was not the case and I would usually end up choosing the option least intrusive to my life.

 

There was also something incredibly satisfying about cheering on an underdog for a change. It is a little difficult to explain why exactly it is this way but it truly felt that my support was meaningful to the team in spite of being an ocean away. Freiburg faced REAL professional football struggles (match defeats, relegation, losing their players to bigger clubs). Bayern, not having to put much thought into struggling, were always going to roll on and succeed whether I was watching them or not so in that I felt a bit of a disconnect with the team.

 

The importance of the live broadcast

 

As I have made reference to numerous times already, I do not get to watch a ton of Bayern live – and of course by live I mean the broadcast and not in person at the stadium. One of the things that makes sport truly great is watching and reacting to the events as they unfold in front of your eyes in near to real time. There are emotional highs and lows, wild swings in momentum, and an incredibly visceral feeling throughout the entire experience, especially if the contest is a meaningful one.

 

Over the past few seasons, this is what my Bayern watching experience, more often than not, has been lacking. I am often relegated to following the matches by text messages from family who are in front of their TVs watching, or catching up on match reports and highlight clips. On the odd occasion, I am able to check out a full replay, but unless something really noteworthy took place (Lewa’s 5 goals in 9 minutes against Wolfsburg definitely qualifies) I tend to take a pass.

 

The matches I end up missing most often are from the league and Bayern have practically sleepwalked to the past few Bundesliga titles. I have very little desire to catch up on foregone conclusions.

 

Where I have been able to watch Bayern most often is in the Champions League as I am freed from most of my football viewing impediments during these particular times. The fact that this competition is truly that – a competition – does indeed play a role in stirring my desire to watch along with the convenient time of the matches.

 

Of course, Bayern have fared incredibly well in the Champions League in recent years but their success in it has not been the force driving me to watch it. It is more so the fact that I get to experience the events, complete with all of the accompanying internal bodily turmoil, as they are taking place.

 

I think it is safe to say that Bayern’s footballing dominance does play some role in my diminished enjoyment of football, but to suggest that it is the root cause of it would be well off the mark. It perhaps justifies or acts as an excuse for all of the other reasons that I have mentioned.

 

To some, I will come off as a spoiled rotten football supporter who has lost a firm grip of his senses, but I would like to think of myself as a perfectly stable Bayern fan who is coming to terms with the changes in how he is going to have to support his club for the foreseeable future. Or perhaps it is a little of both.

 

As we always say… Mia San Mia.

 

Bayern Central

[Enzo Dios Perez]

Do futebol alemão, sim.

Editado 17 Dezembro 2015 por Enzo Dios Perez

[Red Prince]

Que parvoíce de artigo.

[Ghelthon]

Que parvoíce de artigo.

Mesmo. :lol:

 

Vão dominando na Alemanha, na Europa nem tanto, como se viu na época passada.

 

Mas pior que o Bayern na Alemanha é o PSG na França, por exemplo. A diferença do PSG para o 2º classificado (Angers, de momento) é quase igual ao número de jornadas já realizadas (17 pontos, 18 jornadas). Na Bundesliga a diferença do Bayern para o Dortmund é "só" de 5 pontos.

 

Claro que, em termos financeiros, ninguém na Alemanha consegue competir com eles, mas mesmo assim a competitividade vai sendo alta, especialmente com o Dortmund. Aliás, diria até que, tendo em conta essa discrepância a nível financeiro, existe mais competitividade na Alemanha do que seria de esperar.

[Apollion]

Perdi 2 belos precisos minutos a ler esta trampa :facepalm:

[kewl]

Eu achei interessante, acho que nunca tinha pensado na perspectiva de um adepto do clube X que se abstém de ver alguns jogos porque a situação está demasiado favorável para o seu clube, não há luta pelos resultados. É uma boa diferença em relação aos que se ligam aos clubes porque ganham troféus.