Die Verschiedene typen des Fussball

At this point I will talk a little bit more about football in Canada, in the United States and in Germany/Europe. As some of you may already know football or as it is referred to here; “Amerikanishes Football” has two general set of rules; the Canadian version and the American version.

First a little history; football is a game that was born from variations of rugby and it can be dated back to the 19th century. There are several places where football was being played with a variety of rules but the first recorded match between two universities or organizations was on May 14th, 1874, between Harvard and McGill University. This game led to the spreading of organized football in the Ivy League and if you follow the yellow brick road you get to where you now have football played on five continents around the World.

Most of you reading this know of the two versions of “gridiron football” (that’s what they call it in Australia), being played in North America but below are some of the variations to understand the differences between the games.

The Canadian version of the game has:
- 12 players on the field
- 110-yard field
- 20-yard end zones
- 65-yard width of the field
- Field goal posts at the front of the end zone
- Players in backfield are allowed forward-motion to the line of scrimmage
- Three “downs” or attempts to advance the ball 10 yards
- A five-yard halo to protect the punt returner

The American version of the game has:
- 11 players on the field
- 100-yard field
- 10-yard end zones
- 54-yard width of the field
- Field goal posts at the back of the end zone
- Players are not allowed forward motion to the line of scrimmage
- Four “downs” to advance the ball 10 yards
- Fair catch rule to protect punt returner

Those are the big differences between the Canadian and the American versions of football. There are other differences in the rules but overall the game is quite similar. In Europe, they play the American version of the game and the leagues follow the same rules that are played in the NCAA the previous season (it takes about that long for them to translate the rule changes and put them into effect.)

My entire football experience leading up to coming to Germany was in the Canadian version of football; this is a little unusual because even in Canada several leagues still play with the American version of the game. I never had the opportunity to play that version before coming to Germany because my high school league and the Canadian Interuniversity Sport league both play the Canadian version. Therefore when I showed up here I needed to get used to the changes quickly; it wasn’t too difficult since I already knew the rules and just had to get used to the differences.

Another big change that I had to undergo when I got here was the switch from offense, which I had played regularly for the last 5 years, to playing defense. I had played receiver at McGill University but also had some background playing safety and the Mavericks had decided that they needed help with their defensive secondary since they were a little short-handed until the rest of the imports arrived.

After those first few weeks on defense (including training camp), I was allowed to switch back to offense where I was more comfortable. The change wasn’t quite as smooth as I expected, but since I had been playing in a specific offense for so long and was used to a certain way of calling plays, formations and positions it took me a few practices to get used to the new method. I think one of the other differences was since I didn’t get to participate on offense during training camp I had a larger package to learn all at once. Overall, it went fairly smoothly but it just took a little longer than I expected and I don’t doubt that the switch from the Canadian football to the American version of the game contributed to this delay a little bit.


We are now in the preparation phase for our first regular season game. On Sunday May 9th, at 3pm (Central European Time), we play against the Magdeburg Virgin Guards; they have already played a regular season game so they have those first game kinks out of the way but we will be ready and hopefully start the season off right with our first victory on our home field.

The next few posts will most likely jump around between what I was doing for the first few weeks as well as keeping you updated with the football games that are happening at the present moment. Let me know if you want to hear about something specific.