Photograph by Chris Carlin
FC Buffalo center back/center mid Niklas Breunung has been serving this Summer as a media correspondent for the club, doing prematch interviews like the one at bottom of the page. This Fourth of July, Nik has chosen to write about his time in Buffalo after a All-Region First Team season at Le Moyne College in Central New York.
Home or away: This phrase is the start of one of the songs of our great fans/supporters. However, it also can be used to describe my current situation: I am from Germany, but found in Buffalo my home for the summer.
The last two-and-a-half years I have been in Syracuse, right around the corner, to do my Masters in Business Administration and an internship at Le Moyne College, and now I came to Buffalo to kind of finish up my time in the U.S. for now. I got to see a lot of snow during that time, but now am happy to also enjoy summertime in Upstate NY.
My time here started with a very nice trip to my home country Germany as part of the 10-year Anniversary of FC Buffalo. It was very nice to be home for a while and show my teammates “my country” a little bit, as normally it is the other way around.
We had a very nice time and I think that for many of us it was an unforgettable experience and opportunity. The fact that we were with each other all the time and visited many interesting places and met new people brought the team closer together and gave us the chance to get to know each other better both on and off the pitch.
When coming back to Buffalo, I did not really know a lot about the city itself. I have been to a Bills game last Fall (what obviously was a lot of fun and I would highly recommend), but besides that I did not really know more than it’s close to Canada and Niagara Falls, and is “the home of the wings” (definitely worth a try).
However, right on my first night, after our game against St. Pauli, with a great atmosphere at our All-High Stadium, we had a get together with the players and I got to know Buffalo’s nightlife and realized that we live pretty close to downtown. It was a really fun night and definitely more that I expected.
Just the next day, on the evening of my first Sunday in Buffalo, I decided to go for a run as the weather was pretty nice. I was looking for a park near our house, and pretty soon ended up at LaSalle Park with its beautiful view on the lake. I went further to discover lakefront and knew that this is a place I definitely wanna go back to.
What I like about Buffalo besides it being close to Canada and the Niagara Falls is that it is not a huge city, but still has a lot of nice and interesting spots to offer, nice restaurants and bars to hang out (for example in Allen Street), is right on the water, and of course the people.
We hang out with our teammates every day and like that grew together with our squad pretty well in a short amount of time what hopefully helps us to finish up the 10th Anniversary season on a good note. As mentioned at the beginning, our fans are with us home, as well as away, and this is also something that I appreciate a lot, as it is always nice to have some support from outside, no matter if you win or lose.
To finish up, maybe one fun fact about me and my connections to the club. As most of you probably know, we are the FCB, and as my favorite team is Bayern München, which is also known as FCB in Germany, it was quite easy for me to get comfortable with that: So thanks Buffalo for having me and lets finish strong! Go Blitzers! FCB on three… 1, 2, 3…
Best,
Niklas
