Marburg News: Action and Reaction! Third day of the National Football Championship of the Visually Impaired held in Marburg last weekend

Action and Reaction! Third day of the National Football Championship of the Visually Impaired held in Marburg last weekend

Action and reaction could be seen during the third day of the National Football Championship of the Visual Impaired in the Georg Gaßmann Stadium in Marburg last weekend. After the fifteenth minute, Thomas Horn, the striker of the Marburg team SSG Blista kicked the ball into the opponents’ net, with an 8-metre penalty kick. The coach helped him by knocking on the right and left goal posts, so that Horn could orient his shot. He put the ball into the bottom corner.

The game was even more passionate in the second halftime. An aggressive "Voy!” (Spanish for "I’m coming!”) could be heard whenever a Blista player approached a player of ISC Victoria Dortmund who was in possession - a mandatory rule before an attack, to avoid collisions. During the game, the players follow the sound of a bell ringing inside the ball as it moves. The 20 by 40 metre playing field is surrounded by walls. The players’ eyes are covered so that those with residual visual capability don’t have an advantage. And they wear styrofoam rings around their heads to protect them in case of collision.

After a long battle, ISC Victoria Dortmund had to accept a severe defeat at the hands of the Marburg team, losing by 3 to 1. Until then, they had been unbeaten among the 10 teams in the National Champions’ League.

At the end of the game, the audience could finally applaud. During the match, silence reigned, since the players needed to be able to hear the bell in the ball, the "Voy!” shouts of their opponents, and the calls from their coaches. The last games will be held in Hamburg at the beginning of June. At present, it is unclear whether Marburg can still win the title this year. They won the championship in 2008, the year the league was set up.

It’s not surprising that Marburg, together with Hanover and Hamburg, is a venue for the National Football Championship of the Visually Impaired. The Hessian university town on the banks of the Lahn is home to the German Blind Study Institute ("Blista”), the only German-language secondary school in Germany that awards university-preparatory leaving certificates.