European football fans roar for superb teamwork and brilliant turf management

When the first game of football kicks-off in mid-June, fans across Europe will once again be on the edge of their seats. That game’s opening whistle marks the beginning of a month-long celebration of European footballing brilliance and rigorous turf management.

Yes … a celebration of turf management. For the quality of the grass in Germany’s ten host stadiums has a huge effect on the quality of play and the visual impact on TV screens across the continent. And just like the players who have been perfecting their game for months, the groundsmen at those ten stadiums and 24 team training grounds have been hard at work. So too have the turf breeders behind the turf varieties chosen for each pitch. They will have devoted many years of their lives to breeding turf grasses that perform to the standard demanded at international tournaments.

Superb DLF varieties chosen for a summer of football

The groundsmen begin by conducting tests, establishing a maintenance programme, and choosing grass varieties. They typically choose a combination of turf perennial ryegrass and smooth-stalked meadow grass for establishment, and turf perennial ryegrass for overseeding before and during the tournament.

Uniformity across all stadiums and training grounds

All of this summer’s European games will be played on hybrid pitches that blend natural grass with synthetic fibres to enhance wear, performance, and playability. Tournament organisers expect the quality of all ten stadium pitches to be uniform, and to be matched by the quality of turf at the training camps. They aim to give players a seamless transition between training grounds and stadiums.

To support uniformity across all international tournaments, the world’s leading football authority runs an international quality programme. The programme standardises tests for pitch attributes such as traction, ball roll, ball rebound, surface hardness, water infiltration, ground cover, root depth, disease, colour, moisture, and thatch.

There is, however, no international standard for grass seed. So tournament officials monitor pitch quality to ensure the consistency that boosts player performance and pleases the millions of TV fans across Europe.

The turf of champion groundsmen

The turfgrass industry has an interest in the performance of the pitches in host stadiums and training grounds. This summer’s football is a magnificent Europe-wide showcase for the expertise of pitch professionals and turfgrass scientists, and for the collaboration that delivers the tournament-level uniformity that players, fans, and match officials expect.

A month of brilliant football is the best way for the turfgrass industry to show Europe what it can do.

Champions’ Choice – stadium-quality turf in every domestic garden

A number of performance-leading DLF varieties are included in the stadiums. Some of these turf varieties feature in our mixtures for municipal sports pitches and garden lawns. Which is why so many amateur football players across Europe bask in the glory of tournament-quality grass each time they play on their home turf.

Every goal seems like a championship goal when you play it on a lawn grown from Champions’ Choice turf seed. Champions’ Choice is our limited-edition seed mixture for this fantastic summer of European football. It gives every home-grown football superstar a chance to play on the same stadium-quality turf as their European heroes.

Champions’ Choice contains perennial ryegrass – Quick Action® and smooth-stalked meadow grass, as well as strong creeping red fescue. With Champions’ Choice (and with friends and family roaring from the sidelines), anyone can recreate the sporting magic of a stadium game.

Champions’ Choice is a superb seed for active back gardens where it offers top wear performance, fast and dense recovery from damage, exceptional durability, and a beautiful lush-green appearance. Germination is quick to give gardeners a sporting head start on their own season of backyard football.

Find out more

To learn more about the turf species and varieties that make for brilliant top-level sport, speak to your local DLF representative.