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FC Bayern Across America

The story of the 2019 #AudiFCBTour

By Where Is Football

August 15^th, 2019

IT STARTED WITH A CALL...

Audi rang us up and asked if we’d like to follow German football club Bayern Munich across the United States to three summer friendlies. We said, “Yes, thanks very much, that sounds like a lot of fun.” And, more or less, that was that.

These tours are a funny thing. What was once such a unique and high-energy affair has now become a frequent occurrence for Europe’s club elite. The regularity of the stateside summer sojourn has understandably made it a bit less distinctive, a bit less glistening, a bit more quotidian. We’d be lying if we said this felt the same as when I snuck into Chelsea training as a 15-year-old and snapped pics with Jose Mourinho (pictured below, way too large, in a Leicester shirt) when the guard looked the other way. And the larger datasets bear that out as well, with pre-season friendly attendances in the US falling considerably over even five years ago.

But, there’s a counterpoint to all this once you’re up close to the action. For all the snark and sass (much of it very legitimate) about the International Champions Cup and its various similar offshoots that sound like trophies but aren’t actually trophies, there are moments at each match when you realize so many people in the stands will be seeing their club live—this team that they devote endless energy and attention to—for the first, and possibly only, time in their life. That’s very special. Seeing your team, at long last, knock the ball around before your very eyes is a rush unlike any other feeling; as regular as the trips have become, and as thoroughly immaterial as exhibition results are, that ephemeral joy is no less powerful to witness.

More than anything else, though, this was a trip that allowed us to get to know aspects of American soccer culture on a more intimate, more personal level. While matches under the floodlights of professional stadia formed the core of our itinerary, we spent the rest of our days trying to know each city’s rich soccer scene through the eyes of some of its most prominent and active personalities. We saw some pretty cool things.

los angeles

Los Angeles is a surreal land. One for the dreamers.

Never in the wildest corners of our imagination did we imagine a morning like what greeted us on Day One.

Told to meet up with Audi’s (exceedingly kind and helpful) staff at a Beverly Hills hotel, we were greeted with the keys to a very red, very Bayern e-tron, Audi’s first fully-electric vehicle.

The picture below is better than any further description.

After a stop at the beach, we trekked to the LA Galaxy’s newly-dubbed Dignity Health Sports Park, where FC Bayern and Arsenal would soon do battle.

Before the match, we met up with 17-year-old LA Galaxy defender Julian Araujo, who told us about his long and winding journey to the pros. A year ago, Julian was playing youth, non-academy club football; today, he’s playing for the most successful club in America. He told us it’s all been a “dream come true”—but two days after this picture, he’d assist Zlatan Ibrahimovic for the team’s opening goal against new rivals LAFC.

Again, LA’s for the dreamers.

As our friend Ferris once said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around…” You know the rest.

We also met up at the stadium with our friend Diana Al-Shammari, an incredible artist and Bayern superfan. One of our favorite things about football in Los Angeles is the creativity of the scene—and there's nobody around town (or any town) like Diana.

Over the years we’ve known her, she has left us amazed at every turn, twinning her incredible knowledge of the sport with world-class design skills, resulting in some of the most unique pieces of football clothing around. Diana does more than just kit makeovers; she breathes new life into periods of football history with powerful and personal design flourishes.

Matchday itself was brilliant, with a lot of Arsenal and Bayern fans packing the stadium. We’ll let the pictures do the talking, but it was a special night of seeing a lot of our friends in LA who are doing amazing things in the community. Thanks to Audi, we had a very special vantage point to watch some of the most impressive players of this generation do their thing in a 2-1 Arsenal victory.

We left the stadium thoroughly entertained and thoroughly physically embarrassed by ourselves next to the speed of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the aerial ability of Robert Lewandowski.

HOUSTON

The next morning, we flew to Houston to watch Bayern take on Real Madrid at NRG Stadium, the gridiron cathedral of the NFL’s Houston Texans. Prior to meeting up with the European sides, though, we wanted to head to BBVA Stadium, the home of Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer and Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League.

This 22,000-seat orange marvel is situated in the heart of “EaDo” or Houston’s East Downtown district and has the skyline view to prove it.

We even got to bless American soccer great DaMarcus Beasley’s locker with some #WIFlove.

A stone’s throw from the stadium sits one of our other favorite spots in the Houstonian soccer scene: The Calcio Cafe, a local establishment where all patrons are encouraged to play small-sided games on adjacent pitches. We decided on a very ill-advised game of 1v1 in the blazing Houston heat, which left us thoroughly aware of the concept of humidity.

It’s wonderful to see spots like this that build a community and culture around the sport, even just by putting a pitch outside of a restaurant, and we’re delighted we got to stop in during our time in H-Town. (Special shoutout to that awesome mural of some of our favorite #10s, done by artist Betirri.)

After the cafe, we had one more stop on our Houston football tour: The iconic “smurf turf” of HTX Sports Creek, whose blue-hued soccer surface is flanked by an awesome outdoor bar and beach volleyball space. We were exhausted from our first kickabout of the day, but managed to get some touches in at a place that hosts everything from private training sessions to rec league matches to parties.

After getting some more touches in, it was time to watch the pros train at NRG Stadium, ordinarily the home of the NFL’s Houston Texans and an absolutely outstanding venue. Despite opening 17 years ago, the stadium is still so vibrant, polished, and well-suited for a wide variety of events. In addition to hosting regular gridiron action, the arena has been the site of WrestleMania, the college basketball Final Four, and looks set to host matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

It was a golden hour to remember, as spectacular setting rays poured through the stadium’s iconic windows, splashing light onto small pockets of seats in each tier. Beautiful.

We got to hang out with Alvaro Arbeloa, who was as kind as his career was impressive (very). Chatting about his first football memories (the ’94 World Cup in the USA and the “La Quinta del Buitre” Real Madrid teams of the 1980s), his favorite stadiums outside the Santiago Bernabéu (Anfield is number one by far), and his most meaningful triumph in football (his long-awaited first Champions League trophy, La Décima, in 2013/14), Álvaro regaled us with stories of what it’s like to play on the game’s most prominent stages. It was a real treat.

The next day was matchday, and, despite not being completely full, the atmosphere was again legitimately special. We wouldn’t ordinarily be able to say that with straight faces about a friendly, but the towering stands, closed roof, and unique curves of the stadium kept all of the phenomenal noise being made by both sets of fans bouncing around the bowl.

Once again, we had a pitch-side view for half of the match, and it was a treat to see Eden Hazard (in the #50 shirt!) go up against Joshua Kimmich, watch Luka Modric effortlessly float across the pitch delivering inch-perfect passes, and take in the debut of teenage starlet Takefusa Kubo.

Overall, a great night watching two giants of the global game, with 18 European Cups between them, going toe-to-toe on a steamy summer night in the Lone Star State. FC Bayern earned their first win of the tour, 3-1, but both sets of supporters walked away with smiles.

Before heading out of town, we stopped by a pickup game that's been going on regularly for a decade. We were welcomed to join the same regular crew that shows up every Sunday as the cherry on top of their weekend. Here, it's all about getting one last dose of football before the reality of Monday hits. One last chip. One last volley. One last chance to unrepentantly nutmeg your friends before doing it all over again in seven days' time.

KANSAS CITY

In one of the most surreal scenes of our lives, we took an early-morning shuttle straight onto the tarmac at Houston’s IAH Airport and boarded FC Bayern’s chartered flight for a flight to Kansas City. I won't go into too many details, but I will say this certainly beats commercial economy.

Upon landing in Kansas City, we headed straight for Sporting Kansas City’s Children’s Mercy Park, where FC Bayern would face AC Milan. We were given a private tour by Olivia Brestal, Sporting KC’s social media manager, of what is undeniably the most well-designed stadium in Major League Soccer.

This ground is beautiful in every sense. With a stylishly-textured exterior, sharp, swooping roof, and terrific sightlines from every one of its 18,467 seats, the stadium is a total wonder. There are a host of premium areas and communal spaces for all fans to enjoy, regardless of the price of one’s ticket, and a spectacular spotlight given to The Cauldron, Sporting KC's main supporters group.

We were joined part-way through our tour by Gianluca Busio, Sporting KC’s 17-year-old rising star whose extreme talent is matched by his humility, maturity, and hard-working attitude. We discussed Busio's Italian upbringing that made him an Inter fan, the surreal feeling of stepping foot inside a pro locker room as a 15-year-old, and his favorite part of the stadium: the Victory Suite, whose orange chair in the North Corner of the stadium honors a child with cancer at every home match. It’s unquestionably our favorite part as well.

The KC stands are usually filled with fans in Sporting Blue, but on matchday it was a sea of Bayern red. While the other matches on tour featured pretty even splits between fanbases—if not a Bayern minority in the crowd—this one was all FCB, as Leon Goretzka's goal led the Bavarians to a 1-0 victory.

But, there's still one more stop we have to tell you about.

We couldn’t leave Kansas City without going into States Soccer, a football lifestyle company owned and operated in part by Sporting KC players Matt Besler and Seth Sinovic. As native Kansas Citians with over 500 combined appearances for the MLS team, Besler and Sinovic are not only club icons, but also nearly-lifelong locals and they wanted to create a company tied into their KC roots that produced game-changing football clothing.

What’s resulted is States Soccer, which crafts goods around the idea that soccer isn’t just a game but a 24/7 lifestyle—and a sport as proudly American as any other. Without being too saccharine about the project, I’ll just say that I’m not sure of many other top-tier football leagues where the club captain steps off the training pitch and into a downtown shop to market his goods directly to fans.

From the Victory Project to States Soccer to the club’s Stars and Stripes grassroots program, Kansas City was a reminder of the many ways that teams and players can invest themselves in the local community—whether it’s charity work, youth development, or even just entrepreneurship.

At the end of the day, the future strength of American soccer will not be built from a few seasons of Zlatan and Rooney, but generations of broad-based investment and interest in developing the game in local communities.

STOPPAGE TIME

So, overall, what did we learn from our trip?

If we’re honest, not much that we didn’t already know in principle, but let’s recap some things that feel important to us:

Soccer in America is, for all of its idiosyncrasies in its professional league, an unparalleled melting pot of backgrounds, fandoms, cultures, subcultures, and side-hustles that all contribute to a wonderfully diverse and dynamic soccer soup. The sport has a long way to go, but it’s also a lot bigger than MLS, than the US Men’s and Women’s National Teams, than any one club or country can possibly envelop. And that’s unique and worth cherishing.
With that in mind, any portrayal of the "American soccer marketplace" that does not engage with elements beyond the stadium or the television is not a complete picture. While attendances and television ratings offer a large data set (that is often ignored by those marketing football int he country), it's only a portion of the participatory metrics that are important to harness. In cities like LA, Houston, and Kansas City, some of the most influential and well-supported pillars of the football community can be found in pickup games, adult leagues, or restaurants like the Calcio Cafe. That's why we spent a lot of time on this tour trying to meet with them.
Most of all, we know how extraordinarily lucky we are to do this. We feel extremely privileged to have the opportunity to engage with a network of supportive, creative, good-natured lovers of the beautiful game and share their stories. When we started this site, we had one way of describing ourselves that has never changed: “The World’s Game, by the World.”

This is your site as much as ours and it means the absolute world to us to see people consuming our content, throwing us recommendations on the road, welcoming us into your lives, and telling us the things you like (and the things you don’t like). At the end of the day, this is a passion project for us and it’s humbling to know it means even a little bit to anyone else. We’re so grateful.

There’s no massive takeaway here. We went on a trip, had a lot of fun, and learned more about the American soccerscape. We just put one more piece in the jigsaw. But, to us, that’s enough. That’s what Where Is Football is about. Piece by piece, we create the jigsaw together. Pin by pin, we make the map.

And, together, we move the camera back to see what it reveals.

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A huge thanks to Audi for giving us the chance to do this.

We know we don't do a lot of sponsored content, but when we do, we really try to do it with partners that can help us contribute to our mission of showcasing the world’s game, by the world.

This felt like a cool way to reach new parts of the USA and deliver an on-the-ground look at different cities and what’s going on there around the game, as European clubs rolled into town. We hope you enjoyed our journey and saw something you wouldn't previously have.

If you're ever interested in telling a story, or interested in chatting about what we’re getting up to, please do drop us a message on twitter: @whereisfootball, @thatdamnyank or @nathenmcvittie.