It was the night before Christmas and all through the town, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Wait, fuck. Wrong story, what am I saying. Back up.
It’s been a while since I’ve done this, my wires are a little crossed.
It was the night of the Champions League Final 2013, I was sitting in the kitchen of my friend Carla’s apartment in Munich and we were slowly getting soused to manage our pre-match nerves. I was wrapped in a Bavarian flag, my friends Carla and David were clad in their Bayern jerseys, and I was sipping on (re: gulping down) a beer that I bought from the Biomarkt on my way over because it was the only store I wandered past that wasn’t packed full of people.
We kept looking at the clock, looking at each other, and repeating various optimistic phrases such as “we’re gonna make it!” and “I just have a good feeling this time!”
The shit-scared nervous looks on our faces possibly contradicted the positivity of our words but that’s football for you. You always gotta know going in that anything can happen. 100% positivity isn’t usually a good sign.
The weird thing is, though, is that my nervousness felt mostly put-upon. I felt like I should be nervous because experience had taught me that I should be. And maybe I can blame this on the fact that I sat and listened to all seven minutes of Michael Giacchino’s “Moving on” before heading out that night, but as the minutes ticked closer to kick-off, a sense of calm washed over me.
Sometimes, before a football match, I just get this feeling. I can’t explain and it usually makes little to no sense and I’m always always scared to voice it aloud for fear of risking it, but it’s a feeling that tells me that everything is going to be okay. I got that feeling before Germany - Argentina in 2010 as the national anthems were playing. I got that feeling when we drew Barcelona in the semis.
So, I’ve come to trust this feeling. It hasn’t really let me down yet.
(Knock on wood and never wear your jersey on match days, Samantha).
Right. Back to the story. Carla’s apartment, a fridge full of beer, and a television propped up on her desk. We all clustered into her room and arranged ourselves accordingly and settled in for the 90+ minutes of the final.
We ran our hands through our hair, almost tearing it out. We screamed. We screamed a lot. It really can’t be understated how much screaming was going on. Mostly from me. My throat was sore the next day.
But then there it was. In the final minutes, in classic Bayerndusel fashion, there was a Robben goal.
We broke out the Prosecco. We hugged and cried because we knew that finally, after all these years, this was it. It was real. FC Bayern had just won the Champions League for the fifth time and we watched it happen.
Good ole Angela got her hugs and kisses in from Bastian Schweinsteiger, Mandy almost lost his medal forever, and Lahm put his practice to good use by lifting the trophy.
And we took to the streets. Along with just about everyone else within a ten mile radius. I’m gonna reach the end of my story pretty quickly here because the rest of my memories of that night are a little hazy but I will tell you this. It was one of the best nights of my life. The sense of relief and joy amongst the Bayern fans in Munich was an unbelievable thing to witness. All I can offer you is a photo to give you a glimpse of it.
Thank you, Bayern. For everything.
PS: At one point during Saturday night/Sunday morning, I apparently decided that I wanted to play Arjen Robben’s torhymne on my phone. I know this because I opened up my browser a few days later and was greeted with a whole page of search results of pictures of tulips.
Whoops.
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