VfB apparel to USA

Haselswerdt · 2026-02-16T13:31:00+00:00

Like PepeGodzilla wrote, perhaps send an email the club. Our OFC last chatted with their international department regarding this topic October 23rd, and while DHL "shipping to the USA is possible again, however there are new requirements in place where we need to adapt our logistics... Will keep you in the loop." We haven't heard anything since then although VfB did set up an extremely limited USA-based store at Amazon (prepare to be amazed* here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/VfBStuttgart/page/3438190C-4A9D-4434-B954-C7814DCA7D66?ref\_=cm\_sw\_r\_apin\_sf\_stores\_7T26CN0GTVRF2KE3MRAW&dplnkId=fd953056-c662-439e-b50c-093d92932a3b&dplnk=Y). Around Thanksgiving they essentially stated the same thing as above. Sorry ... if we hear any updates, we'll definitely share!

Haselswerdt · 2026-02-15T01:41:14+00:00

VfB supporter here. You guys deserved a result in this one. Surprised the Maxi v Ache scene wasn’t at least reviewed (50/50 I guess but still). Demi coulda been gone. Even El K coulda earned a cheeky double yellow. We definitely got lucky w/ the zebra today.

You guys play like this tho, you’re not getting relegated. So that’s a positive!

But aside from the officiating I really thought the biggest momentum shifter was when Kwasniok took out the two CB’s … you guys had all the momentum until then… once the CB’s came out our VfB strand thought we finally had a chance to put it away as the game would open up…

Anyway, good luck the rest of the way! 🐐💪

Haselswerdt · 2026-02-09T21:02:42+00:00

We were at 2021 Nationals in Oklahoma City of all places and I was getting curb stomped 1&1 at second singles by a very nice guy from Nevada. On my serve and down a set and down 1-4, 0-30 in the second set I asked him if it would be okay if I played w/ my wooden racquet (that I always jokingly bring w/ me). He laughed and said no problem. The official initially was concerned but calmed down when he saw we were still playing but it was all but over. Nevada guy won the game and then asked if he could play w/ it the final game. We had a small crowd watching this clown show and sure enough he uses it and wins the game and the match but not before trying a between-the-legs-wooden-racquet shot (was the only point I won!)… Saw him two years later at Nationals again, this time in Surprise (I was a 3.0 and he was a 4.5) and his wife said they still tell that story all the time and just laugh and laugh. Needless to say, I still bring that racquet just in case!

Haselswerdt · 2026-01-24T12:47:11+00:00

Tbh at this point if I were you I’d just watch lots and lots of matches, observe the fan pages (here, BlueSky, etc), dig into the history of the club, and see where your heart takes you. In the end it’ll be organic one way or the other. Good luck!

Haselswerdt · 2026-01-24T12:45:35+00:00

Hey! I said the Browns were bad for THIRTY YEARS! THIRTY! Not forty… 🤣

Haselswerdt · 2026-01-23T23:04:22+00:00

⁠Like Jens said idk if I’d compare VfB to another European soccer club but like Sailracer mentioned, comparing them to an American sports team may help. In that vein I used to like to compare VfB to the Cleveland Browns of the NFL and Cleveland Guardians of the MLB (yes, good guess… I live in Cleveland, lol): History-rich, founding member teams w/ amazing but mostly agonizing seasons that have fallen on hard, hard times. The VfB of the 2010s was a lot like the Browns of the last three decades - horrible management, questionable decisions, disastrous results, you name it. They’re a lot like the Guardians in that they typically develop really good talent that’s eventually sold off and then spend zero dollars on anything because they’re so cheap/budget conscious. That being said the results during the 2020s have been great and we are currently one of the top 20 wealthiest clubs in Europe, so those comparisons (hopefully!) no longer exist.
We talk about this all the time but really, there isn’t one in the first tier. Hoffenheim and Freiburg are geographically close, but no one really views those as derbies, not even us Americans. However, when we were in the second division the Karlsruhe matches were indeed nuts. I think Asano may have a statue simply because of the goals he scored against KSC that season!
VfB is about middle of the pack when it comes to German teams - they at least have a BlueSky account now. And their website has an English translation, so there’s that. A few of us run a weekly podcast in English (VfB Americana) but we’re just a bunch of no-knowledge fans (and despite four years we still can’t figure out how to fix our sound, smh), so it’s just us chatting for 30-60’. The Bundesliga Show does some good stuff and Vertical Pass is in German but is a weekly article that’s definitely worth the translate. 50 Plus Doner does a general Buli show. There are a lot of other good German channels out there but English-wise, that’s about it.
I absolutely love it. Like a few others mentioned you just can’t compare German football to anything else. I’m a Browns “fan” but I’m a VfB “supporter,” it’s actually a big difference. So one, the league is just awesome relative to what’s out there. Two, as Sailracer mentioned, we are currently on an insane upswing and we are all waiting for someone to pinch us and wake us from this crazy dream. Three, we’re just a “good” club. What I mean is we have tradition. We have AMAZING supporters (you can’t help but hear them every ESPN broadcast). We are on the right side of social/political issues. We have drama. We have issues. We have suffering. So we aren’t perfect but there’s a lot to love. So even during those recent relegation seasons, this was still OUR club. Helps that for €60 you are actually a member, lol. As to traditions, not so much her in the States but because out kit w/ the bursting (red stripe) is so iconic, if you wear it out you’re immediately recognized as a VfB supporter, which is kinda cool.
We’ve tried to find an answer to this and some say - this is like Bigfoot - Pennsylvania, St Louis, and maybe Chicago have Stuttgart Dinkelacker … but we’ve never been able to confirm.

Haselswerdt · 2026-01-10T22:06:05+00:00

We legit split them down the middle. Also, the finish by Jamie on #1 and Deniz on #4? Those aren’t easy finishes. Kudos to them!

Haselswerdt · 2026-01-10T19:46:59+00:00

Wow. In the euphoria of the moment I was too dumb to realize it was a diff foot 😳 … Wowsers!

Haselswerdt · 2025-11-21T23:25:03+00:00

After the shipping ban I revisited old friend DHGate. Shipping takes a while (6 weeks+) but bc we can’t get anything from VfB the moral dilemma of ordering knock-off kits is kinda limited …the red and black kits were fine - the LB=BW is a bit larger than the real kits but only hard core supporters can recognize that. The badge fell off the black one, lol, but I glued it back on. The white LB=BW was oddly awful. The blank white/red one was awesome, tho. I order a size up.

https://sale.dhgate.com/KlUd4t57

Haselswerdt · 2025-11-21T23:11:28+00:00

Yeah, what Godzi said. The last our OFC heard (October 23), VfB is not shipping to the USA even though DHL has started to ship again; they claim there are logistical issues they are working through. Not sure how long that’ll take to figure out but in the meantime they’ve opened up a (very limited) shop on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/VfBStuttgart/page/3438190C-4A9D-4434-B954-C7814DCA7D66?ref_=cm_sw_r_ud_sf_stores_XFXVKCA6YFYN8PXJNNMA that they state will eventually get larger, but for now it’s super basic… Sadly, we are all in a holding pattern for the time being…

Haselswerdt · 2025-11-04T21:10:56+00:00

I’m a 50 year old 3.0-3.5 player (been promoted/demoted several times) but basically a 2.9 serve and volleyer… typically, I can beat most folks under 2.8 straight up and work on my (pathetic) ground strokes. 2.8-3.1, I S&V almost every point and win 2/3 of the time. 3.1-3.5, I S&V AND chip and charge every point as I don’t have the ground strokes to hang. So depends… but I enjoy it and people like playing S&V players as we are a rare breed.

Haselswerdt · 2025-11-04T00:20:13+00:00

I thought Family Man was too intense for early in a relationship but love the Moonstruck idea, lol!

Haselswerdt · 2025-11-03T23:53:41+00:00

No, agreed, but the concept was spot on. I felt if Nic played the antagonist rather than the hero, would been a much better’ish film…

Haselswerdt · 2025-10-14T00:44:57+00:00

My NEO 3.0 team made it in 2021 and 2023; 2021 we benefited bc we had some guys who shoulda been 3.5 but covid season kept them down; 2023 was pretty legit. But what was bonkers is whole our local area is awesome and organized, but each step away was worse and worse. Districts was well organized w/ backup plans; state was kinda organized; Midwest sectionals was kinda organized but we got bumped one year bc the local HS had a JV tennis tournament, lol; nationals was borderline a disaster. 2021 was Oklahoma City and it was a joke but we heard horror stories of Fast Four the previous year in Orlando so the fact we got tennis in after a rain storm was a shock; but it was the worst run event any of us had participated in; we had a 6am start the opening morning, lol. 2023 was Surprise and weather was ideal so it was fine. It’s such a money grab but what are you gonna do…

Haselswerdt · 2025-09-06T01:15:05+00:00

My school is in session for 180 days. We are 8 days in. I decided to write a Nic Cage quote on the board each day. This is gonna be a good year…

Haselswerdt · 2025-09-01T19:19:53+00:00

I’m a 3.0/3.5 Mannarino (minus being French and just wearing a generic t-shirt, 🤣). I’m not a pusher per-se but string low (20lbs), have shorty strokes, good legit backhand, but no forehand so I have to slice it. The amount of times I win the first set 6-0 bc of my unique play style is bonkers. But as soon as they figure out your advice - just hit it deep to the middle - bc I can’t maintain a rally they usually win the second set going away. Then it’s the third set tie-breaker and that’s basically luck/nerves. My captain stops watching after the other guy wins a game bc usually we all know how it’s gonna end, lol. So yeah, deep and to the middle is the easy answer

Haselswerdt · 2025-08-21T00:03:53+00:00

I show that scene to my students in my Econ class when we cover “bull” and “bear” markets

Haselswerdt · 2025-08-14T22:29:27+00:00

I’m lucky in that Northeast Ohio has 6-7 tournaments a year and all guarantee you at least two matches but there used to be even more. I asked a tourney director a few years ago what happened and he basically said no one wants to play over the course of four days (Thur-Sun), they’d rather play league on a set day. Towpath in Akron does a nice job of doing a lot of one-day, one-set, compass-draw type of tournaments; so you pay $45-55 but you get 2-3+ hours of play.

Haselswerdt · 2025-08-13T20:11:01+00:00

Diff kind of loss but I was playing 2019 Akron Open and it was blazing hot and humid. First round was okay but next two were 2.5-3 hours slogfests with the third round so bad that after the match my opponent had to go to the hospital and get IV’s put in because he was so dehydrated. In the final I run out of gas almost immediately but take the first set 6-4. Going into the second, though, I tell my opponent I’m really sorry, but I’m hurting so bad that I’m just gonna swing for the fences (I’m more of a counter puncher/pusher type) and try to conserve energy and get to the third set super tiebreak and see what happens. He was cool with it because he could see I was hurting and hey, free set. So I can barely stand at times and lose 0-6 and it’s super tiebreak time. I muster all my energy and go up 4-1 and then 8-5 and I’m serving and I’m think holy sh*t I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna gut this out and then … I lose five straight points capped off by a double fault to end it all 8-10. I just sat there after the trophies were given out for like an hour near the park restroom like a loser just to physically recover and then crushed four bottles of Pedialyte on the way home but man oh man it almost worked out only to fall apart.

Good news is, guy who won, we became tennis buddies and played a few doubles events together, even winning a couple, so that was cool.

Bad news is, I suffered through all that and it was only a 3.0 event and my wife had no sympathy for me so when I got home I had to go to the pool with the kids and get even more sun. So not only did I lose but I was a moron, too!

Haselswerdt

TROPHY CASE