2022 the first regular-season game in NFL history will take place in Germany in Munich. But the NFL already played five games in Germany from 1990 to 1994 – and created some bizarre stories along the way.

Munich – The Hype is real! According to NFL Germany boss Alexander Steinfort, there were 250,000 ticket enquiries within the first two days after the announcement of Munich as the venue for an NFL season game in 2022. The NFL will also make guest appearances in Germany in the coming years. And even then, the games should be sold out effortlessly.

What probably only old-established football fans know: This is the second time the NFL has played games in Germany.

From 1990 to 1994, the league’s stars played a total of five games in Germany. Not for regular season games, but only for preparation games in the preseason. But the NFL still provided unforgettable moments – and bizarre stories – in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.

“Berlin Wall Gone – Rams Wall Number One “

This was mainly thanks to the advent of cable television. This made it possible to watch NFL broadcasts in Europe in the 1980s. A fan base quickly formed, especially in Great Britain, but also in Germany and Scandinavia. The NFL reacted with the introduction of the American Bowl, a kind of precursor series to the later International Games.

In these pre-season friendlies, NFL teams competed against each other all over the world from 1986 onwards. After three events in London, they went to Sweden, Japan, Spain and Ireland, among others – and in 1990 to Berlin for the first time.

On 11 August 1990, before reunification, the Los Angeles Rams met the Kansas City Chiefs in the Olympic Stadium. With them: the world whistle champion. He was one of the attractions at the pre-match tailgate party on the neighbouring Maifeld.

After a minute’s silence for the victims of the Berlin Wall, the game got underway in front of a crowd of 55,000. The favoured Rams kept the upper hand with 19:3. “Berlin Wall Gone – Rams Wall Number One” was appropriately emblazoned on a fan’s banner. Rams quarterback Jim Everett enthused after the game that he would remember his trip to Berlin “fifty years from now”.

Ticket for the American Bowl 1990 game between the Rams and Chiefs at Olympic Stadium in Berlin. KCvsLAR pic.twitter.com/VK9d9EXWrM

– SportsPaper (@SportsPaperInfo) November 20, 2018

Joe Montana’s last game as 49ers starter

The following year it was even bigger: 66,876 spectators were present for the duel of the San Francisco 49ers with their superstars Joe Montana, Steve Young and Jerry Rice against the Chicago Bears. Here, too, the whistle was blown. This time, however, it was against figure skater Katarina Witt, who performed the coin toss before the game. Witt’s rumoured proximity to the SED regime in the GDR earned her a concert of whistles. Although the Bundesliga started its new season on the same day, no stadium in Germany was better attended.

After the game, things got even more curious when Montana was allowed to throw at the infamous goal wall during his visit to the current sports studio – and missed with every throw. What NFL fans did not suspect at the time: Montana’s game in Berlin was his last as a starter for the San Francisco 49ers. Shortly afterwards, an elbow injury put him out of action for almost two seasons. In Berlin, he once again set up a touchdown pass for Rice in a 21-7 win over the Bears.

The highest-scoring game of the series? In Germany

In the years to come, the quarterback superstars also met in Berlin: In 1992, Dan Marino’s Miami Dolphins met John Elway’s Denver Broncos. The Dolphins’ 31-27 victory was the highest-scoring of the more than 40 worldwide American Bowl games. In 1993, the duel between the Minnesota Vikings and the Buffalo Bills (20:6) once again set a new NFL attendance record in Berlin with 67,132 fans before the curtain fell on American Bowl games in Berlin on 13 August 1994. At the end, the New York Giants defeated the San Diego Chargers 28:20.

Although the American Bowl series continued until 2005, it was no longer played in Germany, although the NFL commissioner at the time, Paul Tagliabue, even held out the prospect of another German venue at the turn of the millennium: “Maybe in Hamburg first in 2001, and then in Berlin a little later on.

The Vikings and Bills will meet for the 13th time in preseason action this Thursday. Their sixth preseason matchup took place on August 7, 1993, in Berlin, Germany, in front of 67,132 fans as part of the American Bowl series, with the Vikings winning 20-6. NorseNotes MINvsBUF pic.twitter.com/BfKAQT9l6v

– Vikings Communications (@VikingsPR) August 26, 2019

Why the NFL return will be even bigger

In the end, German fans had to wait over two decades for an NFL return. But this one will be all the better for it. Because in Berlin, the spectators once only got to see the biggest stars for a short time. In the preseason games, the backbenchers were given more playing time to show themselves. In 1992, for example, the then superstar Dan Marino only sat on the bench for the entire game in the Olympiastadion.

The picture in the stands in Munich is also likely to be different. In the early 1990s, countless US soldiers stationed in Germany were still supporting the stars of their homeland in the stands of the Olympic Stadium. It was no coincidence that in 1990 Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas, whose father had been killed as a soldier in Vietnam, was awarded a military medal before the game. The military act must have gone down well with the GIs in the stands.

Football boom in 1990? “This will last for many years to come “

And: While the preseason games at that time were mainly promotion for the NFL offshoot WLAF or the later NFL Europe, which started in Europe, the main attraction itself is now coming to Germany: regular season games with all the stars.

In 1990, running back Christian Okoye of the Kansas City Chiefs said after the first NFL game in Berlin about a possible football boom in Germany: “It will take many years.” More than 32 years later, it is a reality – and will be on display in Munich on 13 November.