Fussball Culture

I hesitate to share this idea. When a particulary good one comes to me I get a little selfish and proprietary. Anyone familiar with German, European--let's face it, anywhere other than the U.S.--culture knows that football (ugh...soccer) is huge. The problem I've always had with presenting this piece of culture to my students is that it often only gets a passing mention and is quickly forgotten about. How can one convey to students the permanent persistance this sport has on the culture(s) we study? How can I find a way to discuss football (ugh...soccer) with my students on a daily, class to class basis?

Fantasy Football (ugh...soccer)! I have been playing in a German fantasy league for the past two years. (Yeah, I can't believe this didn't occur to me earlier either.) http://www.comunio.de/ I plan on implementing this with my students next semester. Rather than have the students create their own account and pay the membership fee--something which would be unfair to require as a part of grade--I would use my account to acces the info and share it with the class (players for sale, values, points, etc.) The students would be put into groups to manage their fantasy team. The info for the players, teams, points, and trades would be posted on BlackBoard and trades would be handled during class time set aside specifically for this semseter-long assignment (first of last 5 minutes of class). Grading would be based on participation and assessment of the students understanding of the sport and the rules of the fantasy league.

By involving students in an assignment that lasts the entire semester and/or year (the German season starts in August and ends in May), they would gain an appreciation for the scope and importance this sport plays in the culture(s) being studied.