We all know the World Cup is coming up in the sport every other country on the planet calls football. But how about the REAL football, the thing we play here in America without using feet that often?
We fell in love with the European American Football championships
Other countries play our sport sometimes, and if there’s nothing else happening on a June Saturday, hell yeah, we’ll watch it. Especially if it goes into double OT and has reverse passes.
Well, it turns out there’s a fringe following for the sport in other countries, and Saturday saw the finale of the EFAF European Championship -- that’s the European Federation of American Football -- in Vienna in front of a surprisingly packed house, and some of us football-starved Americans found a livestream, and it was GREAT.
First off: Germany has great jerseys:
Germany's football unis are pretty intimidating... pic.twitter.com/44R9Xx5Uz0
— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) June 7, 2014 German WR almost caught a taunting penalty after a big 1st down vs Austria. Some bad blood here... pic.twitter.com/y9uE0E9s7Q
— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) June 7, 2014 Second, the game was great. It went to overtime tied 17-17, and OT featured a REVERSE PASS by Austria to send it into double OT.
The scrappy Austrian squad would lose 30-27 in double OT -- Germany scored touchdowns in both overtimes thanks in part to a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on the Austrian defense, giving them very short fields.
The struggle is the same in any language pic.twitter.com/TVG0SgrAXQ
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) June 7, 2014 Third, we learned some German from the overexcited Austrian announcers.
“The kick is good” = “kick ist gut”
“Power running” = “Power running”
“Incomplete” = “incomplete”
“Unsportsmanlike conduct” = “unsportsmanlike conduct”
Fourth: They copied our game experience!
Euro football cheerleaders: pic.twitter.com/UA9H8LRW9K
— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) June 7, 2014 Fifth: MANZIEL CASHIN’ OUT:
So Austria's kicker just made the Manziel $$$ sign after nailing a field goal. You should be watching this. pic.twitter.com/zBdMYL5GTK
— Robert Klemko (@RobertKlemko) June 7, 2014 Anyway: The IFAF World Cup is in Sweden next year, and the U.S. is the defending champion after outscoring competition 126-14 in 2011. (They didn’t send NFL players, obviously, but WE WISH THEY DID.) We’ll watch it like idiots if we can find a livestream, and we hope you’re there with us.
OH MY GOD A GERMAN GUY JUST YELLED "BACK TO BACK BABY!" AT THE CAMERA IN A HEAVY GERMAN ACCENT
— Adam Jacobi (@Adam_Jacobi) June 7, 2014 How do you say "We want Bama" in German?
— JJ Stankevitz (@JJStankevitz) June 7, 2014 See More:
