The Potsdam Royals’ success story began with a simple magazine ad. Michael Vogt remembers the beginnings: “I read about experimental football training in The Juveniles. It seems he was not the only one On January 7, 2005 he and others “were 80, 90 people”, as the current coach of the Football League First Division says. I think the organizers were surprised and had no idea what to do with all the people. 90 percent of people didn’t have any equipment either,” Vogt says.
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Season 1: “He never confidently won a match”
The SC Potsdam ad had given up, and Christian Gerber, who is still commenting on the royal family’s live broadcast today, had an idea for the football division. “At the time he went to the SCP offices and asked what ideas we had about the name”“The ‘Roys’ was a good fit for Potsdam,” recalls Lutz Neschelmann, also a man who played first hour soccer in the state capital.
In pictures: Potsdam Royals apparently beat Cologne Crocodiles.
The Potsdam Royals also won their third game of the season and clearly have the upper hand against Cologne’s Cologne crocodiles with a ratio of 31:7.
© Gerhard Bol
In 2006, Los Blancos played its first season – with reasonable success. “We lost all the games in the first season, and we definitely didn’t play,” says Vogt, who then went from position to coach. “I said, ‘If I do that, I’ll also formulate a goal very clearly, and I don’t feel like messing around. It soon became clear that we wanted to go to the second division. At first everyone laughed after we didn’t win a match with confidence, but then things went relatively quickly.”
Withdrawal and new beginnings
In fact, the march followed to the regional league, in 2010 the championship was at the end of the season, but the parent club refused a possible promotion, and the financial burden was too much. “With a little distance you can understand the decision. It was difficult for us athletes when we had such success,” Vogt recalls. Several players had left the royal family, including coach Vogt, and the football project was nearing completion just five years after it was founded. But the former Potsdamers, scattered in all directions, were not really happy. “The group of dissatisfied grew bigger and bigger, so we said we would try it on our own. He was actually in the mood for beer,” Vogt says. And a renewed march to the German Football League 2 (GFL 2), members of the royal family won 28 games in a row, and the team was playing in the first division.
Michael Vogt has been the coach of the Potsdam Royals since 2007.
© Gerhard Bol
The association is becoming more and more professional everywhere, although it is mostly supported by a large number of helpers. While the top teams in the GFL charge the head coaches from USA Soccer, Vogt still does his work in Potsdam on a voluntary basis and sometimes packs the boxes for fan articles, which are now on demand from the USA. Members of the royal family have reached the top of Europe, and good American players or assistant coaches can afford them, this season the team reached the semi-finals of the German championship for the first time, The Bundesliga is the strongest outside the American continent – next year it could be the final too, say the Potsdam team.
Jens Torsten Muller has been president of the Potsdam Royals for about a year.
© Christoph Brandhorst
Up to 2,500 spectators attended this season’s Karl Liebknecht Stadium, where members of the royal family played their matches last season. “We offer a great alternative, also for families – it’s peaceful. You don’t need the police, people come to have fun together,” says Jens Torsten Muller, who has been president for a year and has been with the club for about 15 years. It’s still very popular, but it has one problem: very little space. Training times are rare in the sports city of Potsdam, in the summer sometimes three teams train at the same time with a total of about 100 players, and the club had to stop two teams altogether for capacity reasons.
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