The American football players of the Vogtland Rebels are currently condemned to watch. On the night from Sunday to Monday, this would have been the case at the 55th Super Bowl, the final of the American professional league NFL, anyway. But the Corona regulations limit the role of spectators themselves. “In the past few years we designed the Super Bowl as a kind of open team evening. Everyone still had one or two people in tow,” reports club chairman Lucas Kölbel.
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The association has grown to 150 members since it was founded in 2014. The catchment area extends from the Vogtland and West Saxony to Thuringia. The rebels, who play their games in trust, also benefit from the upswing that the sport is experiencing through regular live broadcasts on German TV. “In general, the number of members and clubs in the association has doubled since then,” said Kölbel. When he got in, things looked different. “American football has always been an issue, but it hasn’t been tangible for a long time,” says the 33-year-old.
And that’s how Kölbel, who comes from Netzschkau, started his sports career on the soccer field. That only changed when he landed in Lübeck as part of his training with the Federal Police almost ten years ago. “There was a football club there with the Cougars, and I really wanted to try it out. I immediately tasted blood during training,” said Kölbel. In his first season he played in the second team before moving to the second division team. As a fullback, he was supposed to block the way for ball carrier Mike Davis, among others – with his teammate causing him almost more problems than his opponents. “Mike was as fast as an arrow and often overtook me before he met his first opponent,” said Kölbel.
After completing his training, the Netzschkauer, who now lives in Zwickau, tried his hand at football again. In 2013/14 he ran in the Vogtland class for SV Coschütz. But physically he had long since become too robust for the football field. “It felt like I saw yellow in every game. I was annoyed that I was standing around with my almost 90 kilograms, and when a player with 60 kilograms hit me, it was whistled,” explains Kölbel. So it turned out that Jörg Munko took his idea seriously at the beginning of 2014 and called for football training in Vogtland. Kölbel joined in with his experience, and on March 13, 2014 the Vogtland Rebels were officially founded.
Kölbel is active there as chairman and trainer. He only laces his football shoes when the need arises. The first team now plays in the major league. At least in theory. The 2020 season was canceled due to the corona. Instead, the A-youth team made its debut on the pitch. Otherwise there wasn’t much the Rebels could do. “Corona will also have an impact on the coming season. Normally we would have been working on building strength since October and would now take care of tactics and moves,” says Kölbel. The club boss assumes that the players will remain loyal. “As soon as we are allowed to train, we will draw attention to ourselves and start a few actions.” But before that there is the Super Bowl, where Kölbel predicts an exciting game: “I think Tampa Bay will take the lead, but Kansas City will turn things around in the end.”
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