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For its first 800 years, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, was perhaps best known for producing salt. For the past 20, its calling card has been football—the American kind.
“It’s the only place in Europe where American football is the big sport: bigger than soccer, bigger than basketball,” says Nick Alfieri, director of the documentary Unicorn Town and linebacker for the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns (who just announced his retirement).
When Alfieri went abroad to continue his football career in 2016, the Portland native knew he wanted to document his experience, but that was all. Schwäbisch Hall turned out to be sports-movie gold: an oddball and an underdog.
The picturesque Southern German town is a David in the German Football League, facing burgeoning Goliaths from Berlin and Frankfurt. At about 40,000 people, its population is relatively minuscule; its number of paid players is routinely five times smaller than better-funded squads. But what Schwäbisch Hall does have is a team culture: “Unicorn Magic” is how the locals term the comeback-happy team’s “pure confidence.”
This uniquely positive and communal football tradition was established by 26-year head coach (and local high school teacher) Siegfried “Sigi” Gehrke, who helped found the team and played quarterback in its early years.
The Unicorns also thrive on a network of volunteers. This includes the vast majority of its German players, who work full-time jobs outside of football. “It’s more passion-fueled than results-driven,” says Alfieri, who spoke to WW from Portland during the GFL offseason (the 2023 schedule begins May 20).
Compounding their status as a good story, the Unicorns are a good team, one of the best in Europe despite appearing overmatched. Unicorn Town, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime, recounts Schwäbisch Hall’s push toward the 2016 German Bowl (the GFL’s Super Bowl equivalent) and all the charming culture shock of American players discovering local quirks: beers on the bus, 14 weekly team meals at participating restaurants in town and a coach who dutifully insists end-of-the-bench backups learn the game and travel with the team.
His film took shape in sometimes unpredictable ways, Alfieri says. That’ll happen when the director is nursing broken bones and shaping the documentary one tackle at a time.
Above all, Alfieri kept his camera rolling, sometimes as a helmet-mounted GoPro during practice, sometimes launching drones off hotel balconies across Europe. “You’re at the mercy of life and whatever happens,” he says. “I was totally oblivious and naive at the start.”
As for filmmaking chops, the former Portland Jesuit and Georgetown University linebacker briefly attended USC film school before returning to football, found constant inspiration in sports docs like Free Solo and primed his editing skills with the successful YouTube channel NALF, which highlights a range of German-American cultural differences and exchanges.
Unicorn Town was also fortunate to have an influential executive producer on board from the beginning: Christian McCaffrey, one the NFL’s best running backs. The San Francisco 49ers star roomed with Alfieri’s younger brother Joey at Stanford, where McCaffrey minored in film. He gave multiple rounds of notes on Unicorn Town and advised restructuring a key travel montage with split-screen images. “I think that really elevated that portion of the movie,” Alfieri says.
Six years after the film’s main narrative wraps, Alfieri is still a Unicorns linebacker, a testament to how “Sigi” and Schwäbisch Hall refuse to run the team like a business. This ethos, Alfieri says, has allowed him and his fellow American “imports” to reexamine their definition of success.
“We started to look at football as a vehicle for other aspects of life,” he says. “I think we all thought we’d go over for one year and then come back to the States.”
Don’t let the familial charm and cartoonish mascot fool you, though. The level of competition is high: Schwäbisch Hall tight end Moritz Böhringer was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 2016. But if players perhaps lack the size or athletic gifts required for the North American leagues, Alfieri strongly recommends the GFL experience for its camaraderie, international education, and quality of life.
“You’re not going to get rich playing football in Germany,” he says. “But basic needs are taken care of, and you have enough money to buy your after-game beers.”
SEE IT: Unicorn Town, not rated, streams on Amazon Prime (and free on Roku and Vudu).