A Game of Ghosts: Of Empty Stadiums and a Year in Pandemic Life
None of us imagined we’d end up here.
We are one year removed (give or take a few days or weeks, depending on when you start counting) from the day modern life as we know it was altered forever.
In March of 2020, the whole world watched as the coronavirus pandemic forced almost every country on Earth into lockdown. Just like that, everything had changed. No more nights out with friends or family. No more concerts, conferences, or any other big events to look forward to. No more plans for a future that looked as uncertain as ever.
Back then, we thought this “new normal” would only last for some weeks, maybe months. Yet here we are a year later, and we still don’t know when things will return to how they once were.
When we look back, each of us will be able to point to a specific moment when they knew that things would be different from then on. When they realized that the situation could actually be very serious.
For me, it started one year ago today. On March 11, in the German city of Mönchengladbach.
I’m not going to lie. The early months of lockdown were quite hard on me.
Sure, I was fortunate to keep a job and have a steady income every month. But I had so much laid out for the year. There were goals I wanted to accomplish and plans I wanted to see through. Knowing that all of those were wiped out in an instant — with no way of knowing if and when they would be feasible again — paralyzed my thoughts.
Within a few weeks, my anxiety attacks returned. There were moments I’d randomly start hyperventilating and curl into a ball. I had trouble falling asleep most nights.
Day and night, my thoughts would spiral.
Is this all that you’re good for?
Look at your worthless, helpless self!
You have no future.
I’d dealt with hard times and insecurity before. But in those moments, as the world around me kept telling me that we were all in this together, I only felt alone.
I was a ghost.
That day in Borussia-Park, home stadium of the Bundesliga’s Borussia Mönchengladbach, was a preview of all that was to come in the sports world. The Rhine Derby between Gladbach and FC Köln was the first match in Germany to be played behind closed doors.
The Bundesliga is among the fan-friendliest professional sports leagues in the world. Each club has its own ultra scene of hardcore, dedicated fans. Sold-out stadiums are a weekly occurrence. Fan-choreographed displays, tifos, and the loud noise are a match highlight in themselves.
All this to say, an empty fan-less match in Germany is quite the jarring experience.
Players and fans alike have noted the stark difference in atmosphere. No amount of fake crowd noise could measure up to the volume and hype of the real thing. Gone were the roars that signaled a build-up in play. Goal celebrations seemed much more hollow and empty.
The thing is, though, the game itself didn’t change. It was still the same rules, the same officials, the same turf, the same players.
But the experience couldn’t be more different.
It was incomplete. People felt a match should be more. Something was missing.
If there’s one feeling that can describe anxiety, it’s feeling lost.
Imagine being trapped in a labyrinth that only keeps expanding. Every step you take and every new direction you turn only disorients you more, to the point that you forget where you even started or where you are now.
You are left alone in the company of your innermost thoughts. You want to believe that everything will turn out alright, but your own mind tells you otherwise.
You try to remain in control. You search for that sense of agency and inner willpower to make it out, but it seems to slip through your fingers every time.
In the end, you don’t know what to believe.
You’re left surrounded by ghosts — all the what ifs and what might have beens. All the possibilities and missed opportunities that keep you awake at night.
Every move is Am I doing this right? Every breath becomes What am I doing this for? Every wrong turn leads to What am I missing?
And so those voices become your best friend and worst enemy. They are your constant companion, as you try to seek something, anything, without even knowing what to find.
You become a ghost yourself, an in-between spirit, a lost soul that is a shell of who you once were.
The German language, predictably, has a special word used to refer to sport events that take place without any fans in attendance — Geisterspiel. Translated literally, it’s a combination of the words geist (“spirit”, “ghost”) and spiel (“game”, “match”).
A ghost game.
Quite fitting for an empty stadium and an empty experience that only highlights everything that you think is missing.
And quite relatable to anyone who’s felt that emptiness in and around them during this trying period of isolation.
I am someone who is at their best when life is organized. Plans are laid out, days are scheduled, and goals are set.
During those difficult weeks when the pandemic wiped out any plan, schedule or goal I had in mind, every day was a fight to convince myself that I still had a purpose. Every day I had to tell myself that these times wouldn’t last and there was something good to look forward to at the end of the tunnel.
But in those moments, I felt like I was left wandering in that stadium in Gladbach. Running around and chasing tails in a vast field that has become eerily silent. Forcing myself to celebrate good things that, in the grand scheme of things, seemed so minor.
All the while asking, what is all of this for? Why am I still playing?
A ghost game, indeed.
Like the canned cheers that reverberated throughout stadiums this past year, ghosts aren’t real, no matter how much we wish they were.
They can tantalize you, play games with you, manipulate you into joining their world. But it’s all just a mirage.
They promise you the world, but on their own terms. They will make you want what you think you need, but is actually bad for you. They take your dreams, your desire, and use it against you to hold you back while making you want more of their promises.
But somehow, no matter how they pull you away and make you feel like you’re not yourself, you remember who you are. You remember what led you to this point. You remember a better version of yourself, the person that the ghosts will try to tell you isn’t coming back.
You remember that at the end of the day, it’s you, with a ball at your feet, facing a goal. The shot is yours to take, and this chance belongs to no one — not any missing spectators, not a worldwide audience, not a collection of voices swirling around — but you.
It’s still the game you love. And you know it’s still worth playing.
And so you’re left caught in between, filled with an ache of longing in your bones.
You still yearn for that roar of a crowd on their feet for you. You ache for that piece of mind that allows you to sleep at night knowing everything will be fine.
You long for the voices to stop, but you can’t bring yourself to imagine a life without them.
The choice is yours: listen to the ghosts you think you know, or take that shot and forge your own unknown path in the real world.
The funny thing about a brush with ghosts, though, is that it’s only by being sucked into their world that you learn to understand your own a little bit better.
At my lowest points, I had friends and loved ones who would stay on the phone with me for hours as I tried to process everything going on. I had a therapist whom I could turn to when things got too overwhelming. When I was lost, I had people who helped me find myself again.
In hindsight, having my plans disrupted also allowed me to take a step back and reflect on my own goals and desires.
I’m not the same person I was a year ago, and that’s a good thing.
I know myself better. I know my own strengths and weaknesses. I’m more sure about what I want out of life. I know who I am and what I’m worth.
I’m done wondering what if instead of owning my decisions and living life one day at a time.
Even in an empty stadium with no one to cheer me on, I know I’m not alone.
I don’t need to be weighed down by voices around me that aren’t even real. I’m taking every shot that life can throw at me, because you never know when you might score the goal of your life.
There’s a world out there for me to see, and dreams worth pursuing and a life worth living and people worth loving.
And it’s so much better than anything any ghost could ever promise me.
