"Kathy, there is a trip which was made just for you," said Millet Mananquil, our lifestyle editor, to me. "You will get to watch two World Cup games."
I was at the opening of the FIFA World Cup in Munich, Germany, on June 9. I watched the opening game at the FIFA World Cup Stadium and saw how Germany beat Costa Rica 4-2. I was one of 66,016 people in the full-to-overflowing stadium.
On June 11, I watched my second World Cup at the Frankenstadion, Nuremberg. I was part of the 36,898 football fans who saw Mexico outclass Iran 3-1.
There is nothing that can compare to being at a World Cup game. After all, the games are held only once every four years. This year, 32 teams are kicking it out for the World Cup title. Football is the most widely watched sport in the world. Eighty percent of the world’s sports fans are football fans.
The fans come all-out for their teams, and the adrenaline of the games gets your heart rate up faster than any trip to the gym. Football fans are people with a passion, and being among them, one can’t help but catch that passion, too.
My companions on this trip – from the Philippine STAR sports editor Lito Tacujan, Manila Bulletin’s Ding Marcelo, Inquirer’s Teddyvic Melendres; Manila Bulletin’s assistant lifestyle editor Lai Suarez-Reyes and Inquirer’s Vangie Baga-Reyes; Adidas assistant manager for marketing-communications Odette Velarde and Visions and Expressions GM Ginggay Joven-de la Merced – were all football fans by the middle of the first game.
At the opening, I saw football greats from the ‘60s and ‘70s like Brazil’s Pele and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer. Of course, there was Toni Braxton and Il Divo (a singing quartet managed by Simon Cowell) who sang the World Cup Song.
The performance at the opening was great. It gave us a glimpse into the history of Germany and a tribute to the other World Cup winners. But a lot was lost in translation because everything live was in German. It was colorful and magical, much like being in Disneyland. Can you beat that?
The World Cup is being played in 12 cities around Germany. Six teams – Germany, Argentina, Spain, France, Japan and Trinidad and Tobago – are Adidas-sponsored teams. The uniforms of the referees and all the footballs are Adidas-made. For a football fan like me it was a dream assignment come true.
Adidas, one of the major sponsors of the World Cup, made this trip a reality. Indeed, "Impossible is Nothing." We got to Germany on board Lufthansa, which has a drawing of a football on the nose of its planes, as they are also one of the sponsors of the World Cup.
My brothers (I have five of them and a sister, too) – three of whom played football from grade school to college – were big fans of Dassler. They would tell me that he was a genius when it came to football spikes. And, yes, they wore Adidas spikes all throughout their football careers.
Football was the first sport I learned to play and understand. I watched all the NCAA games that my brothers played for La Salle Greenhills and then later on De La Salle University in the ’70s through the ’80s. There was nothing I enjoyed more than being able to spend my weekends at the football games. And our summer vacations were spent playing football with the neighborhood kids at the football field of La Salle Greenhills, which was a few minutes’ walking distance from the home I grew up in. Football is the game of my childhood. A game I truly love. But enough of the past.
Adi Dassler was born in a small town in Germany. His dream was to make the best sports shoes, so that athletes the world over would want to wear the shoes he made.
Dassler was a football fan who made his first pair of football shoes in 1920. It was this passion to make sports shoes that drove Dassler. (He died in 1978.) And it was his passion for the sport that drove him to make the best football shoes ever. He did that 80 years ago.
By the mid ’30s, Dassler was already making 30 different shoes for 11 sports. He had a workforce of 100 employees. His work came to a halt during WWII. He resumed in 1947. With 47 employees, he began with many more new ideas for sports shoes. It was in 1948 that he introduced the company name and, a year later, its logo – the three stripes.
But his biggest breakthrough came in the 1954 World Cup. In the game Germany played against Hungary, the team wore Adidas. Germany won the World Cup for the first time. Dassler was among the first to use well-known athletes to promote the brand. In the mid- ’60s, he began his production of apparel for competition and training. Ball production began in 1963.
It was on our trip to Nuremberg (a three-hour bus ride from Munich) that we got to see Adidas up close, as we made a trip to the Adidas Worlds. A tour of the Adidas headquarters was on top of our minds. There are four "worlds" in the headquarters: The World of Sports, World of Living, World of Commerce and Public World. Our first stop was the World of Sports, which was completed in 1999.
"The World of Sports is the perfect site for the Adidas Group. It continues the legacy of our founder Dassler, sets new architectural standards and, with its numerous sports facilities and green areas, it provides our young and international team of employees with a unique environment for living and working," said Herbert Hainer, CEO and chairman of the Adidas Group.
Our tour guide for the day was Petra Schmeisser, a product trainee who was dressed in a gold, comfy-looking Adidas sports dress for the occasion. "There are 1,400 employees here," Petra informed us. "Nine hundred work in the main building, and there are a total of 53 nationalities employed by Adidas."
The World of Sports houses the corporate offices of Adidas. It has a total of 39 hectares in the northern part of the Herzo-Base. "This area was taken over by the US military from the German army after World War II," said Petra. "It was built in 1930."
The World of Sports was conceived as a campus, and it features, aside from the main headquarters, the sports and outdoor areas, state-of-the-art exhibition halls, and the award-winning staff restaurant called Stripes.
We did get to have lunch at Stripes, where the food is served cafeteria-style. The resto is built on an artificial lake and is a good place to sit down and unwind. We also made a short stop at the Adidas brand center, a state-of-the-art exhibition hall with a total floor area of 12,500 square meters.
"We are proud of the biggest TV wall in the world," added Petra. "It is 125 meters long. You could even have a 100-meter dash run through each of the TVs."
Indeed. The hall is impressive with all the latest technology-driven sports shoes from Adidas. We took a peek into the concept store of the future, which featured an area where running shoes can be made to order. "The machine can scan the way a person runs. Whether they run on their toes or heels – and then it can design a running shoe fit for the person," said Odette Velarde. "There are plans to have stores like this in Asia, too."
The hall is also the showcase for the three Adidas divisions – Sports Performance, Sports Heritage and Sports Style. Interesting.
The hall seems to be Adidas’ secret weapon, because photo-taking was not allowed. There is a Walk of Fame, which highlights the milestones and future innovations of Adidas. We had to skip on the World of Sports (Adi Dassler Sportplatz) because it was being used for the World Cup.
Next stop: the World of Living. Here, there are 600 residential units that can house 2,000 people in a 30-hectare area. The place is divided into three residential areas with Tuscan-style houses. There is one family house and several duplex houses in the area. The units are not exclusive to Adidas employees.
Best stop: the World of Commerce. We were given discount coupons to do some shopping at the Adidas Factory Outlet. Anything and everything Adidas was on display. It is a 2,000-square-meter warehouse. So many choices, so little time. Outside the warehouse was a giant video wall where the football games were being shown. The piazza out front is also used for special events and can accommodate 2,000 people.
Rest stop: the Public World is where our hotel was located. It is the Adidas-Ramada hotel. The hotel is on a 25-hectare property and when we got there it had been in operation for only two weeks. Modern, comfortable and cool are some of the words that come to mind when I recall the hotel.
Our rooms had only the most modern fixtures – flat-screen TVs, close-to-the-ground beds, ultramodern phones, showers that took a while for me to figure out because of the design. And pillows that make sleeping feel like a slice of heaven. Oh, the best part is the hotel’s décor, which features giant black-and-white photos of athletes of different sports. The headboard of the bed also has a black-and-white photo of an athlete in action.
This four-star hotel has 150 rooms and a small fitness and spa area. It has a conference room, too. During our stay, the staff was very apologetic for things that did not work well. "We apologize for all the trouble; the first two weeks have been hectic," a front desk staffer said. Great.
Adidas continues to play a vital role in sports development worldwide. In 2005, it signed an agreement to be the official sportswear partner for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. It is the official partner, supplier and licensee of the 2006 World Cup, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 World Cup.
Adidas is performance, innovation and inspiration. It is proud of its past and its heritage. But it is also young and trendy – keeping up with the times and looking to the future. If it is anywhere there is sport, it is forever sport. Impossible is Nothing.