Spiel 3

As you may have read on the twitter feed game three ended with another Mavericks victory 39-10. There are some positive and some negative points that have come out of the game; first and foremost we won and our team walked away healthy. We have lost a few players this year to injuries and seeing an injured teammate is never fun. Most of those injured players were present at this game and it was nice to see them walking the sideline and celebrating the victory with us after the game.

The victory was extra sweet for our players and staff because there is a huge rivalry between Monchengladbach and Köln (Cologne) so there was a little extra punch behind the game. Just to put it in perspective, some fans put up a sign calling out our team for having some paid players. This is a normal thing here in European football since most teams bring in some players from the USA, Canada and other parts of Europe to play for their team. There are rules protecting the number of import and non-import players on the field just like the CFL but this was just some fans trying to spice up the rivalry; below is a picture of the banner.



The glaring negative point that sticks out from this game as well as the game against Langenfeld is the penalties we have been taking as a team. I heard a statistic today that we had about 200 yards in penalties against Köln. Those penalties keep opponents drives alive, end our drives, give them better field position, make ours worse and they are demoralizing for our team and keep opponents hopes alive.

As football players we never want to get caught for a penalty so excuses to avoid the blame on penalties are common and numerous for example: it was the referees fault, the ball was already snapped, there was no whistle and so on but there is one thing that doesn’t lie and that’s the eye-in-the-sky (game film). We will go back review the game tape and hopefully rectify the problems and move on.

On a personal note, this was a breakout game for me; I had yet to really produce much of a game in my opinion since I had been in Germany and I was happy to finally deliver a much better performance. I had 6 receptions for 205 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Below are a few pictures from a few different websites. If you want to check some pictures from the two photographers websites here are their links.
- Daniel On Tour
- American Sports Info








A side-note/inside joke for those guys that know me from back at McGill; yes I was throwing and completing a pass after there was a botched snap on a point after attempt, so much for noodle arms. (We used to joke about my long “noodle-like” arms).

That’s it for now, my next post will have some pictures from my apartment here in Monchengladbach so you guys can see where I am living. Drop a comment or question below.