When I think of American Sports, I have to
immediately think of Football or Baseball, just because they aren’t common over
here in Europe. The same goes for Softball. Honestly, I didn’t even know how
any of those sports were played before I lived in the US. I remember the first time
I went to a Football game with my Belgian teammate. She was shocked how many
players they had, and then noticed that they all were wearing the same jerseys
until someone told us that this is the same team, just the defense and the
offense team, and the opponent was standing on the other side of the field ;-)
When you speak about Football in Europe everyone means Soccer. Soccer is the
most popular sport over here. Another common sport in Europe that isn’t popular
in the USA is Handball. It is a mixture out of Basketball and Soccer. You play
with a smaller ball, you are allowed to dribble and catch, but you shoot at a
goal with your hands that’s why it is called Handball. Besides different
sports, there is another big difference between American and European Sports.
In Europe, everyone plays Sports in a club.
That means, when your kid wants to start a sport, you have to choose a club,
become a member of that club, which includes usually a monthly or yearly fee.
You pay a small amount of money, but therefore your kid can play the sport,
gets coached and is insured in case something happens. A club, depending how
big it is, can offer many sports or also just one. Usually the name of the club
gives you some information: Osnabrücker Sportclub is the name of a club that
offers many sports in the city Osnabrück; Basketballclub Wildcats Wolfenbüttel
is the name of a club that offers just Basketball in the city of Wolfenbüttel
and the Wildcat is their mascot.
Usually clubs have youth teams and adult teams.
In youth teams, the kids are put together after age. Of course kids that are
better in their sport can also play in the higher age group. Depending on the
sport those youth teams can go until different ages, but not older than 22.
In adult leagues, everything goes after
performance. That means to move up to a higher league, you have to become the
best in your league. In certain sports there are even up to 10 leagues, which
is usually hard to understand for Americans. Sometimes there are also
professional players in D4 or D5. Of course moving up has also something to do
with the amount of money a club has, because the more money, the better players
they can get or pay the fees in the higher league. However, just with money you
can’t move up, you have to perform. The same goes the other way around, if you
are after a season at the bottom of your league, you will have to move down to
the lower league.
Since sports are played in clubs in Europe, all
sports start off as hobby, and even as you get older, and the kids graduate
from school and go to university or work a job, nobody cares that you play
sports. You have to do that in your free time, and you won’t get off from
school or get any support. You also don’t get anything paid for with sports; in
general most times you pay to be able to travel, to get a jersey and all those
things. This is a huge advantage in the US, where the school and the sports
basically work hand in hand. You have to get good grades to be able to play,
and you have to play well to be able to get a scholarship. In Europe, the
parents have to control all that and decide, if their kid can practice or has
to stay home and study. Therefore, practices are usually in the late afternoon
and evening because everyone has their own schedule during the day. Also,
practices are only once a day, and not even every day depending on the level of
the team. An exception to that are sports schools, who offer morning practices,
but also those work hand in hand with the club, and kids don’t play for their school.
There is some kind of university championship, but usually the players of a
club that study at the same university come together and play in those games.
However, there is no league or even practices. Just in regular time, there are
championships and a University can register their team.
But back to the clubs: Another thing to mention
would be the age differences in the leagues. Since the league your team plays
in depends on the performance, it happens often that teams out of different age
groups play against each other. It is possible that an Under18 team also
competes in D4, and plays against a team that has an average age of 35. Also,
in one team can play players out of different ages, i.e. 17 and 36. It just
means those players are all able to compete at that level.
Depending on the amount of teams, and the
perspective, parents should choose the club for their child wisely. It should
be a club that offers their child a good team in their age group, but also
higher league teams that it has the chance to move up to a better team. For
youth players it is even possible to play in two different adult leagues as
well as their youth team. I.e. when I was a teenager, I played with 17 in the
U18 youth team (my age group), a D3 team, where I got quiet some playing time and
also a D2 or once even a D1 team, where I was happy when I got to play two
minutes, and was able to learn from the professionals . This is also an
important thing for the development of your kid as a player, because the kid
learns to take on different roles, such as the go-to-player and the bench
player that is glad to just come in, and doesn’t complain about not playing. In
some cases it is even possible to play in two different clubs, if the one club
offers only youth teams and the other club offers adult teams, your child can
become a member of both clubs, and play for the youth team in one club and an
adult team in the other club. However, it is not allowed to play in teams of
both clubs that compete in the same league.
I hope I could help you understand the European
Sports a little better, and if you have any questions feel free to ask.
