How to Watch (and Still Enjoy) the Champions League as a BVB Fan

Finally! Now that Borussia Dortmund are out of the Europa League, we can all drop the facade of pretending it’s a competition that’s worth a damn, and we can go back to only caring about the Champions League. Unfortunately, with BVB out of the competition, it may be hard for some fans to find any way to become remotely emotionally invested.

Fortunately, I’m here to help. With Dortmund’s recent history of total ineptitude in the knockout stages, watching the Champions League without Dortmund is something I’ve got tons of experience in. Here are a few ways you can motivate yourself to watch the Champions League, because it’s not like you’re going to do anything else on Tuesdays or Wednesdays:

Watch Because it’s the Beautiful Game or Whatever

Blah blah blah, football is beautiful, blah blah blah, highest level of competition in the world, blah blah blah, European nights. Nobody cares. Next!

Become Financially Invested

No, I’m not talking about sports betting. That poppycock is merely for the unwashed masses. I’m talking about the way that rich people who wear boat dockers and say things like “price/earnings ratio” become financially invested in soccer: the stock market. Specifically, you can do this by investing in the noble companies that sponsor the clubs remaining in the Champions League.

Got some T-Mobile in your portfolio? Bayern are your club. Own a few shares of Standard Chartered? Root for Liverpool! Got a few spare billion dollars lying around? Just... buy Chelsea!

Sure, due to so-called “global events” the market might be a little “unstable” right now, and it could be risky to buy in, but if all the soulless, amoral ghouls working in hedge funds are buying in, then why not do the same? It’s not like they’ve ever gotten anything wrong.

Warning: None of the above is intended to be financial advice. I am not a licensed financial advisor, although even if I was, I would still not advise you to buy Chelsea. What a shit club.

Take the Petty Route

Rooting for teams is so overrated. You have to be miserable when they lose, you have to follow all their transfers and squad developments, and once they’re out of a competition, that’s it, you’ve got nothing to do. It’s much easier, and often much more fun, to be a petty, contrarian asshole who roots against the teams that everyone else roots for.

There are plenty of teams to root against in the Champions League this season. There are the rich plastics like Paris Saint Germain and Manchester City. There are the evil empire clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid. You can even root against all the feel-goody underdogs like Benfica and Ajax, who are only in the Champions League in the first place because they grind their respective domestic leagues into paste.

And of course, there’s Bayern. What better way is there to live up to the reputation of a salty BVB fan than by loudly tweeting “LOL another tap-in for Penaldowski!” every game?

Embrace Nihilism

We’re all just temporary living organisms contemplating our meaningless existence on a heated rock that lazily floats around the vast vacuum of space. One day, you will die, and even further down the line all memory of your name, the Champions League, and the human species will vanish into the quiet, cold void of the universe, with nothing but silence in its wake. So before that happens, you might as well enjoy some soccer while you’ve got the chance!