A South Tyrolean dreams of the GermanBowl: “Football is my passion”

On October 12th, the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns and the New York Lions from Braunschweig will play for the 41st GermanBowl, the title in Germany's highest football league. When both teams take to the field in front of around 25.000 spectators in Frankfurt's Commerzbank Arena, a South Tyrolean will also be involved. Alex Ferrari recently moved to Schwäbisch Hall on loan from his parent club Bozen Giants.

“I was too impetuous, too over-motivated for football or ice hockey” Alex Ferrari Since then, the full-time occupational safety expert from Bolzano has regularly commuted to training sessions and games in the town of 500 people in Baden-Württemberg, almost 44.000 kilometers away. “This is an enormous effort, which is only possible because my employer accommodates me and I put every free minute into this sport. This is my great passion,” explains Ferrari, who also used to play football and ice hockey, but now says openly: “I was simply too impetuous and over-motivated for these sports.” 16 coaches and home games in front of 4.000 fans All the effort Ferrari puts in is forgotten by match day at the latest: “We have up to 4.000 spectators at our home games. American football is the number one sport in Schwäbisch Hall. That can't be compared with Bolzano or Serie A." Huge differences become apparent in training alone; the sessions at his new club are usually accompanied by 16 trainers, "only three of them look at every hand movement I make and analyze everything very carefully.”

Alex Ferrari (number 2) is on the road to success with Schwäbisch Hall. © Sarah Philip

For the young man from Bolzano, the move is a huge career step through which he hopes to continue working in one of the best leagues in Europe for the coming season. To do this, he travels to Germany almost every week on Thursdays or Fridays, trains there and plays in the championship games. On the days when he is not on site, he receives drone footage of the training units so that he can rehearse game systems and attack moves on the computer at home. Unicorns with 50 wins in a row The result is an unbridled run of success: Ferrari has won all of its five games with the Unicorns so far and confidently made it to the finals, and the champions from southern Germany have now been unbeaten for 50 games, or rather for around 3 seasons. If the outside linebacker from South Tyrol has his way, this winning streak should at least be extended to the GermanBowl on October 12th.

Before the big showdown in the Frankfurt football temple, Ferrari and the Italian national team will be in action this Sunday in the European Championship qualifiers against Austria. “These have been pretty stressful weeks for me, but the sport of football and the values and emotions it conveys are worth every second.”

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A South Tyrolean dreams of the GermanBowl: “Football is my passion”

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