Sport in Germany is so different than it’s global counterparts. Not only are the common sports different, but also where you practice, how often you practice, and how long a season lasts vary from the United States.
The main sport in Germany is soccer and it lasts the entire year, save for summer holidays. There is no second most popular sport, as all the other sports are extremely far away from soccer’s popularity. Many people play tennis, volleyball or other sports, but these sports are not popular on TV or as events to watch. The only time most of the people watch sports other than soccer are when Germany is participating in a global competition. For many people, “soccer is a lifestyle and not a sport” and that’s not in terms of playing, but being a fan.
Sport in Germany for young people is not connected to school. There are separate clubs for sports and most of these clubs only offer one sport. For clubs, soccer also dominates, with most cities having more soccer clubs than any other activity. Because of that, the people on your team often don’t go to the same school as you, and you only see them at practice. Team spirit isn’t as prominent for smaller teams, and rarely do people outside of the family attend games. Most teams practice twice a week. If you make it into higher levels of competition, practice time increases to 3 or 4 a week, but it’s extremely rare to practice 5 days. The practices take place in the evening and the games are on the weekends between 9 am and 1 pm.
In Germany, you play every sport the entire year and there are continuous games as well. You have a short break in winter and a long one in summer. This makes it hard to do multiple sports because games and practices interfere, but it’s possible. So I‘m excited to be able to play a new sport every season for my school and really commit to it.
