FRANKFURT, Germany —Wearing his blue Patriots jersey with the German flag on the shoulder, Marcel Berninger and 150 New England fans in Germany accompanied by a marching band will march through Frankfurt to the train station and then from the train station to Deutsche Bank Park on Sunday morning.
This week it doesn’t matter that the Patriots are 2-7 or that the quarterback and coach are both competing for their professional futures. While fans in New England are miserable because of the location of their team in the standings, the sizable contingent of Patriots supporters in Germany are thrilled at the location of their team on the map.
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The team they root for from afar, that they lose sleep staying up late for when kickoff happens anytime later than 1 p.m. EST (it’s six hours later in Germany), is in their country, in their stadium.
The fan club members, who gather in small groups on Sundays and a large group for their summer party in Hanover, Germany, will get to gather at an actual game. Instead of yelling at their TVs, they can cajole the referees from close range.
Berninger found football as an adult. In 2010, he watched some games with close friends and felt a connection. He liked the game and needed a team. It wasn’t a hard choice. Not only were the Patriots really good with Tom Brady at his peak, but they featured Sebastian Vollmer, a native of nearby Dusseldorf on the offensive line.
“Sebastian Vollmer, the German guy, was from nearby Dusseldorf 20 minutes away. There’s a German guy playing for a football team over in the USA? So, of course, the Patriots,” Berninger said. “That was the point where I became a fan.”
In 2014 he started going to watch games with Patriots fans in Essen at a place called Schrebers whose function room hosts weddings, company parties and on fall Sundays between 40-50 German fans eating American food. They’re one of several Patriots fan clubs in Germany and there are others in nearby Austria and Switzerland, who’ll have contingents in attendance on Sunday.
There are more than 5,000 members of a German Patriots fan page on Facebook.
Vollmer might have sealed his initial interest, but Berninger like Patriots fans on any continent, became a Tom Brady devotee, complete with No. 12 replica jerseys.
But when he ventured to the United States to see the Patriots for the first time — a Week 2 game against Miami in 2016, Brady was suspended for Deflategate, a word that sounds almost German. Berninger saw Jimmy Garopplo and Jacoby Brissett take care of business against the Dolphins.
Berninger returned the following January and saw Brady pick apart the Texans in the Patriots first playoff game on a march to the Super Bowl.
“It was very, very, very cold in the stadium, minus-3 degrees Celsius,” Berninger said. “But it was so awesome. Really, really great.”
Marcel Berninger, an officer in a chapter of the Patriots fan club in Germany, shows off a Patriots jersey with German accents that the club members will be wearing on Sunday in Frankfurt. (Matt Vautour photo)Matt Vautour
Outside of North America, Germany is a football oasis and no German city loves the sport more than Frankfurt. According to the New York Times, there are 3.6 million avid NFL Fans in Germany. The Galaxy, Frankfurt’s entry in NFL Europe and the World League of American Football, was one of the best-supported and most successful international franchises. Its four World Bowl titles are still a point of pride.
When the NFL announced games in back-to-back weeks at Deutsche Bank Park as part of a growing number of regular season games being played abroad, the city and the region celebrated. Tickets were in high demand. Movie theaters will host viewing events for people unable to attend in person, an event that’s usually used for the Super Bowl.
The German media, at the press conferences before last week’s game between the Dolphins and Chiefs and this week’s Patriots-Colts game, showed off both strong technical knowledge of the NFL and the fact they have been clearly paying attention to the 2023 Patriots.
For Berninger and the North Westphalia region fan club members, the hope turned to who’d be coming. Patriots owner Robert Kraft had publicly hinted at the likelihood of his club playing in Germany back in 2021.
“Since the point that the NFL announced the NFL will play games in Germany, we all hoped that the Patriots will host the game in Germany,” he said.
The league made it real in May.
It won’t be just Patriots and Colts fans among the German fans in attendance. A walk through the pop-up NFL Fan Experience on Saturday in downtown Frankfurt featured jerseys of every team in the NFL on the backs of fans speaking German. The interactive quarterback challenge where fans could try to hit targets featured a long line of would-be passers, although there were as many shot-put heaves as there were tight spirals thrown toward the targets. While the events were crowded, many German fans won’t arrive in Frankfurt until Sunday morning.
Fans play video games on a huge screen next to Frankfurt’s historic Gutenberg Monument the day before the Patriots were scheduled to face the Colts in Germany. (MATT VAUTOUR)Matt Vautour
Nearby the line to see the display of Super Bowl rings and the Lombardi trophy was almost as long. As they waited in line, fans spoke English in Southern accents, Boston accents and German accents all talking football.
The German Patriots fans have the same arguments and complaints as their American counterparts.
“Some fans say Mac Jones is the problem. Some say Bill Belichick is the problem,” Berninger said. “Most of the people that are really, really expertized, like our officers in the fan club, are like ‘Yeah, Mac Jones is a problem and maybe Bill Belichick is, but not as coach, but as GM, the problem. The whole problem is much bigger.’ First, it’s the O line, second are the white receivers and then its Mac Jones.”
But they’re putting those complaints on the back burner for a bit. This week is about celebrating.
“It means a lot to me, really a lot to me because I’m a fan for now 12 years,” Berninger said. “It’s another feeling than in the US and in the Gillette Stadium or anything else. It’s like you have a home game.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
