Soccer at Special Olympics
DFB-Elf can learn something from the “madness”.
06/22/2023, 2:07 p.m
Football is a crowd puller at the Special Olympics. In front of the backdrop of the Berlin Olympic Stadium, the Germans finished off Switzerland with a thumping victory, which is almost uncomfortable for them because of the Olympic spirit.
The result was very clear, but with the joint group photo and the La Ola wave for the enthusiastic spectators, the pure joy was back on the Swiss faces. The Special Olympics kickers had just lost their semi-final against Germany at 0:25, but thanks to the loud support, the mood was still great. Of course, the Germans were also infected by this, even if the division into groups and the resulting results caused a little resentment.
“It’s mixed feelings. Winning 25-0 against a team isn’t the Olympic goal. We should have been in Group A, that’s a scandal,” said striker Vincent Grüneberg. The World Games for people with mental and multiple disabilities in Berlin are “simply great” for everyone, said coach Michael Kürten – although the German kickers are only fighting for gold in performance group 2 due to the slightly poorer goal difference in a “hammer group”.
Nevertheless, the motivation is huge to give everything again in front of the home crowd on Saturday against Uganda. “We want gold. We don’t want to let that be taken away from us and we don’t want to weaken the fact that we would have won gold in Group B,” said Grüneberg. The German women still have a chance at bronze.
“It’s really exciting”
The unified version of the matches, in which three players per team without mental disabilities are on the field in a seven-on-seven, are a crowd-puller in West Berlin. The German team around captain Ömer Cümen lost 2:3 in a high-quality match in group A against South Korea on Thursday and no longer has the gold in its own hands, but is probably fighting for bronze.
Nevertheless, the German players got standing ovations from the 300 or so loud spectators. “The atmosphere is just amazing, it’s really inspiring. That’s how I imagine inclusion sport,” said coach Friedrich Quien. The Neckarsulm handicapped sports association together with the VfR Heilbronn youth team make up the entire men’s national football team. “We’ve grown even closer here,” said Quien.
The enthusiasm had already spilled over to ex-world champion Philipp Lahm and DFB vice-president Celia Sasic on Wednesday, who had stopped by the Maifeld. “We can also learn something here,” said Lahm, tournament director of the EM 2024 in Germany. The men’s national team can also learn something from the Special Olympics, believes Unified supervisor Heike Acker, who couldn’t resist a small dig at the stumbling DFB team: “The national soccer team should look at it. Then they’ll know how fighting goes.”