The Los Angeles Rams hatched a diabolical, mean, and seemingly perfect plan, but fate, that lousy traitor, reversed it. This year’s Super Bowl is in Los Angeles, at a $5 billion sports palace that just opened this season and is the home of the Rams. So the team not only saves the journey, it can also complete the two-week preparation for the final in its own training center north of the small beach town of Malibu. In addition, the whole city gathers behind the team, the enthusiasm can be felt everywhere. You can’t walk ten yards without seeing a Super Bowl poster or someone in Rams gear. So the team did pretty well, however: They’re officially the away team for this Super Bowl.
One might ask: so what? The answer: They really thought of everything with this stadium, including making the home team’s dressing room as functional as possible and the opponent’s as a mausoleum. The rooms are crooked, the players can actually get lost on their way to the shower, and it’s impossible for a coach to address the entire team – but of course it’s necessary before such an important game, whether it’s a Beckenbauer one “Let’s go out and play football” or a sentimental “We’re fighting for every inch” speech like that of Al Pacino in the unforgettable football movie “Any damn Sunday”.
In Los Angeles, everything is designed for the Rams to win the Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, just as everything was designed for FC Bayern to win the Champions League in the so-called final dahoam 2012 in Munich. Anyone who remembers the atmosphere in Munich at the time should multiply it tenfold – after all, exaggeration in sports is normal for Americans.
And the Rams did everything they could to triumph. To understand this, a short trip to Detroit is necessary. Matthew Stafford, the Rams quarterback, played there for 12 years. Unable to take the franchise’s failure any longer, he requested a transfer and came to LA before this season. At such a moment, the former heroes quickly become hate figures for some fans, jerseys are burned. However, if you catch up on the mood of the football fans from Stafford’s old place of work and telephone Tyler Tucco, manager of the “Detroiter Bar”, you will find out that the institution on Sunday The Stafford will be. According to Tucco, the mood is positive even among hardcore Lions fans: “He deserves it, the boy.”
One for the spectacular ball catches: Rams receiver Odell Beckham Jr.
(Foto: Mark J. Terrill/AP)
That phrase could be the Rams motto for the finals, because there are a few players who deserve that ring you put on your finger when you win. Odell Beckham Junior, for example, one of the most spectacular pass recipients in history (if you don’t believe that, look at some of the catches on the Internet, such as the one-handed falling backwards or the Superman-in-the-endzone), after seven years the lack of success with the New York Giants and the Cleveland Browns came to LA in November. Jarvis Landry, receiver of the Browns, suddenly joined Beckham’s virtual press conference – now a competitor, but he said: “You work so hard, you deserve to be in the final; and now get this ring.” Or defender Von Miller, who also came in November. Although he won the title with the Denver Broncos in 2015, he has since experienced a dry spell of Saharan dimensions; and that should end now.
There is a great lust for the title in the Rams roster and among the fans
The Rams put together the squad because of the sporting quality, but also because of the unconditional greed for the title. They even sacrificed their future for this, because they gave up the right to vote at future talent fairs for the players they brought in. They’ve had a couple of guys in their squad before who deserved to win the Super Bowl; the second top receiver Cooper Kupp, for example, or the defenders Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey – all candidates for induction into the Hall of Fame, their ambition for a plaque in the sport’s Hall of Fame could be underpinned by the title. So everything for victory this season, at the final at home.
That’s how the residents of LA see it for themselves, and that was clearly felt this week. They feel they deserve this title as loyal and stricken football fans; It’s like this: The Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995 after 48 years in Los Angeles – and won the only Super Bowl in their history there in 1999. The Raiders won the last title for an LA football franchise in 1983, but they moved to Oakland in 1995 and now play in Las Vegas. When the Rams returned to LA in 2016, they rummaged Angelenos their old jerseys with the names of legends like Eric Dickerson, Jack Youngblood, Jackie Slater on them. Also in the Super Bowl week one constantly encounters the ancient camisoles on the streets of the city.
It’ll be all hell on Sunday in the city of angels; nothing other than a triumph for their Rams is out of the question, the underdogs from Cincinnati don’t have to wait another 54 years for the first title in their history, but at least one more. Will Angelenos tells the story of the failed football final at home and the triumph of Munich a year later, who hears that the Rams have already experienced all this: three years ago, against the New England Patriots; this shameful 3:13 defeat. So nothing can go wrong this time, not even as an away team at home.
