As a football craze, of course I would like to experience this. I want to know the tradition of a football club especially in Europe. Well maybe this is not so long tradition, but I want to know anyway… And for sure, I would like to experience in getting the signature; which also means the chance to meet football stars in person.
Luckily, there’s one of my Indonesian friend who would like to come along. The signature session is started at 11.30AM. Me and my friend come at 10.30AM; and as it predicted, the queuing line is already long! Just check at this video:
When we’re about third-quarter-way, there’s a crew (of the event) walking around with poster. In the poster there’re names of the players that will give signatures in the east side. So apparently the team is divided into 2, one in west and the other in east. We line up in east entrance. There, I see the name of my favorite WB player, the goalkeeper, Tim Wiese. I love his style. So I am glad that I am in a right line. But my friend wants to have Torsten Frings signature and he is not in the east side, so she’s a bit disappointed. To leave our line and change to the west side is so risky because the signature session will be ended at 1.30PM no matter what. So if we have to start lining up again in west side, the chance to even enter the signature place is less than just stay at the east side. So we stay.
And after waiting for about 2 hours under the sun and even rain, we finally can enter the stadium at about 30 minutes before the session is over. But the queuing isn’t over yet, we still have to queue inside. However we can see the players now somehow. We are so excited and prepare our stuffs to be signed. I prepare my shirt while my friend prepares her notebook; and of course we both prepare our cameras!
Finally, we are face to face with the players. But then, one of the crews start giving instruction, saying that the time almost over and we have to speed up. No camera and no signature in places other than the official cards!!! So, each player has a card with picture and short biodata; and they sign it then give it to us. That’s all!!! So there it goes, my chance to meet European football stars just fly away. Nothing special. It fees like just meeting bunch of European in an exhibition; go to a booth and collecting cards. :( I manage to document some of the players but when I try to take picture of Tim Wiese, my camera is blocked by a crew :(
After the signature session, there’s an open public training demonstration. There I meet my German friend. I told her about our experience in getting the signature. She said we’re lucky cause we can collect 11 signatures. Last year, the queuing is based on each player. So you can see which player is so favorite, with long line, and which one is not. And my friend only can collect 2 because she lines up for Tim Wiese and Torsten Frings.
The training itself isn’t so special, if I can’t say it boring. They just demonstrate some of the training session: some players just jogging around the field and some play football in half size field. In the end all the players try to shoot from half line to the goal. This training session ends after an hour.
So basically the event is over. But the booths and games are still open for awhile. Also the fans shop. We head to the fan shop to check the merchandise because it says that all articles are discounted for 20% just for today. Well, they all still far from our budget somehow…
If people ask me whether I have a nice time or not; well, it’s hard to say. Of course I am glad that I can experience all of these. But the fact that I can’t interact with the players surely is annoying. Well at least I get the real signature and not printed ones. And I don’t wanna hear anybody says to me, “Is that all that you got?!”. Argh, I will surely punch that person right away!!!
And for Werder Bremen, I’ll be back next year! If I have to, I’ll just camping in front of the queuing line…!!!
For more videos, go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/seafoodgirl
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