Augsburg’s Evan Fuhs Checks in from Spain – Installment #3
Augsburg men’s soccer assistant coach Evan Fuhs is blogging during the Auggies’ trip to Europe from May 3-13. For photos from the trip and more blogs, including thoughts from Augsburg student-athletes, go to the Augsburg men’s soccer website.
Auggies Junior Matt Bowman
Considering that many players on the Augsburg soccer team are from Minnesota, they are all very familiar with rivalries in sports. Like IMS readers, all the boys understand the rivalry between the Vikings and the Packers. Nevertheless, this concept is taken to a whole new level of fervor in Spain, even at entirely different levels of the professional sports spectrum. Augsburg midfielder Matt Bowman (SO, Maple Grove, Minn.) shares his thoughts:
“Today we saw a great performance by the hometown team — Leganés. The two teams were both in Spain’s third division, but that didn’t matter to the fans. Though they were short in numbers (the stadium’s capacity was about 4,000), their support and passion for their team ran just as deep. They are passionate and dedicated to their teams, because ‘futból’ is a lifestyle. To put it in perspective, Augsburg fans definitely support the soccer programs with cheering and scarves at our field. In Spain though, it’s similar to a religious following; the fans truly appreciate the game.”
There is a deeper understanding of the game in Spain than in the U.S., and it shows in every game played here. As usual, there are vendors everywhere selling supporters’ scarves, but here some vendors sell scarves for “antimadridistas” — people who don’t like the Madrid clubs. On the opposite end, there are scarves that say “Thank you, father, for making me support Madrid.” The scarves are just the tip of the iceberg in understanding how deep their passions run.
Evan Fuhs sitting in the Real Madrid dugout
During the Leganés match, our group was surprised by the seemingly random times that the rest of the fans started cheering. As these outbursts popped up again and again with no obvious connection the match in front of us, we recognized what was really taking place. Almost every other person in the stadium had a radio headphone, listening to another match that would determine the fate of Leganés.
As the match progressed, we learned how our match factored into a much larger league fabric. More still, we saw first hand how deeply these people identify with their club — even in the third tier.
Augsburg’s women’s soccer team posted its first blog from its trip to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany today.
Main Augsburg men’s/women’s soccer trip page.
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Nice article Brian,
It was a pity that Leganés isn’t going to participate in the play offs.
One remark “antimadridistas” are against “Real Madrid” not against all the teams in Madrid. For example, most Atlético de Madrid supporters and Barcelona supporters and some other are “antimadridistas” too.
¡¡Forza Lega!!
¡¡y forza atleti!!
¡¡Vamos campeones!!
Sounds as if we have a Spanish football expert on our hand. Very nice! Thanks for the comments Rubén.