80 years of VfL Wolfsburg: Why the club isn't so bad after all – Am Mittelmaßkanal

VfL Wolfsburg and I are forever connected. The first time I attended an FC Schalke 04 game in my life, the opponent was VfL Wolfsburg. I can remember many details of that day: the tram ride to the arena, where a friend of my father gave me a Schalke Santa Claus (the game was on a Wednesday, the week before Christmas Eve). The tram ride back, where a father in a cowl yelled at his son in a cowl, "Don't tell your mom that I gave you a beer today, right?" I don't remember anything about the game itself.

I had to google that Hamit Altintop scored, even though he was my favorite player at the time. What has stuck in my mind to this day, however, is the performance of a VfL Wolfsburg fan. Because our seats were near the away section, I had the pleasure of observing him at length at the beer stand during halftime. He, too, was wearing a ketchup jacket. Already pretty drunk, he took an empty cup from the visibly irritated saleswoman at the beer stand, which he then filled with ketchup from the dispenser at the sausage stand by persistently pumping it. Then he tilted his head back, raised the cup to his chest, and let the thick, red mush run down his throat, but more importantly, over his denim jacket.

What a wonderfully smeared world had I stumbled into? Perhaps this spectacle has given me a bit of a soft spot for the club that, for many, is the epitome of the soulless factory club. But perhaps I'm also a bit more lenient with the Wolves than the average, tradition-conscious football fan, because VfL Wolfsburg pleasantly reminds me how refreshing mediocrity can be.

Because it is like this: Despite all the successes, despite Magath's masterpiece in 2009, despite the chubby-cheeked cup winner Hecking in 2015, despite the runner-up finish in 2016 and Champions League evenings against Real Madrid: With the wonderful reliability of a shift worker who always shows up on time for his job on the assembly line at the VW factory, VfL Wolfsburg is falling back into the league's mediocrity.

Yet Wolfsburg have done a lot to gain a taste of the glamour of the big football world. They signed Marcelinho and Diego, Julian Draxler and Stefan Effenberg, even Nicklas Bendtner. Nicklas Bendtner! If that wasn't a desperate cry for attention, what is? They tried Mark van Bommel on the bench and Steve McClaren. Steve McClaren! Try reading his name without the phrase "The idiot with the umbrella" popping into your head. See? So this move, too, is nothing more than a desire for headlines.

But the nice thing is: despite these attempts, it's other names that embody VfL Wolfsburg for me. They are names that don't stand for glamour and glitter. They are Stefan Schnoor and Roy Präger. Martin Petrov, in short-sleeved jersey and gloves, of course. There are Alexander Madlung and Timm Klose. Peter Pekarik and Patrick Ochs. Ivica Olic and Mario Mandzukic. Cedric Makiadi and Miroslav Karhan. Honest workers! There are Sascha Riether and Marcel Schäfer (a skilled worker's power bar on my neck for anyone who can tell them apart). And of course there's Maxi Arnold, somehow always has been. Honestly: If someone told me that Maxi Arnold was pulling the strings in Wolfsburg's midfield alongside Pablo Thiam back in the early 2000s, I would believe them.

Speaking of buying up: Yes, VfL Wolfsburg plays in the Bundesliga thanks in part to VW's money. Yes, the Mittelland Canal has been avoiding the 50+1 rule since 2001, courtesy of the DFL. Yes, the light show after goals in the Volkswagen Arena has only limited connection to established football culture, and anyway, real football romance perhaps only exists in the form of a few ketchup-stained jackets. And yet: Wolfsburg is not Leipzig!

This isn't just a geographical fact, but can also be justified in terms of content. While Leipzig, with cold-blooded calculation, uses the millions of euros to dispatch clinically bred young football machines from the RB cosmos to their location and then use them to desecrate the DFB Cup or resell them at a profit, Wolfsburg, despite millions of euros, repeatedly manages to slip down the table, sometimes into the bottom of the table, sometimes even into relegation. This lends the approved 50+1 exception from Lower Saxony a much more human face than the unapproved 50+1 exception from Austria.

In 1997, VfL Wolfsburg was promoted to the Bundesliga. I've been seriously interested in football since the early 2000s. I don't know a Bundesliga without the club from the mediocre canal. It's always there. And that's okay.