Fortuna Dusseldorf 2-2 Eintracht Braunschweig, Monday 31st July 2017

Fortuna Dusseldorf 2-2 Eintracht Braunschweig (Bundesliga 2, att. 25,492)

Welcome to ....

It's 9 years since my last visit to Fortuna, during my first mini German football tour.  I took in St Pauli, Fortuna and Energie Cottbus.  Just about all I remember of Fortuna was blindly following fans on to a tram and finding that you couldn't tell the football ground from any other metallic building in its surrounds and the latter remains true, with the stadium a faceless edifice among other faceless edifices.  Everything looks like a multi-storey car park.  Oh, that one IS a multi-storey car park.  My bad.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Still, once inside one shouldn't moan.  It is a superb two tiered stadium which wouldn't look out of place were it built in 2017 rather than 1974.  With a capacity of 54,600, it certainly plays the part, though despite it and Dusseldorf’s size, Fortuna struggle to be anything other than a yo-yo Club between Bundesliga 1 and 2.

The impressive inside.

Having plenty of time on my hands, I walked to the stadium, along the River Rhine.  It was a handsome walk and it was a pleasant day.  Actually, it was red hot.  I picked up a bottle of Erdinger at a stall on the way.  However, once you start hitting car parks it becomes a bit of a slalom finding which building is the stadium.  Tip?  Follow the crowd.

Enjoying a pre-match beer by the river.

I tried to have a walk around the whole stadium, but fencing blocked off the away end (you'd have to go some for a fight; perhaps that's the idea).  I bought my ticket at a booth.  ‘One ticket please’ and he knew I wanted a standing ticket.  Even better, it was towards the corner, behind the goal.  I wouldn't have to watch the match through netting.  Finding the entrance was something else.  This complex is damn confusing to the easily confused.

Ticket office hugs.

Oddly, there were no signs for which entrance to go in, so I took a punt.  Seems any entrance will do cos once you get past that security check you can then walk around the outer concourse (in the sun) or the inner concourse under the stand.  Suddenly there were signs aplenty.  I was still relatively early so I grabbed a beer and a wurst and went and sat down on the terrace, watching the teams warm up and wondering whether every side now has the same pre match routine.  There’s the one touch game of footy in an enclosed space followed by the laying the ball off for a jogging player to sidefoot the ball over the bar.

Anywheresville.

The crowd was around 25,000, roughly half capacity, not that you'd know cos the seats are different colours, to camouflage any gaps.  Was it Portugal 2004 which started this craze?  Meantime, the home end is terracing in the lower tier, seating above.  Last time I sat (but at a standing price).  Did I sneak up there?  I can't remember.  The terrace looked capacity in the middle two pens but there was space on either side.  For me it was busy enough that you felt part of the crowd, but not so busy that you were always being jostled.  Oh, and it's a big terrace so ample views were afforded towards the back.

The F95 ultras.

The match  was an entertaining two-two draw.  Eintracht generally looked the better side, despite conceding early, and scored the goal of the game when a four man four touch move ended with a tap-in which was hardly emphatically finished.  The keeper should probably have got down to it

Fortuna scrambled an equaliser against the run of play with 15 minutes left.  Five minutes later Eintracht had a player sent off, second yellow, both fouls.  From then on it was one way traffic, with Eintracht holding a solid 5-4-0 line.  All in all, a Fortuna win would have been…. Fortunate.  Braunschweig (play-off losers last season) look the better bet to provide a promotion challenge.

Match action.

At the hostel, I met another groundhopper, William, a Dundee fan.  He was off to Fortuna, Munich (a friendly tournament), Plzen and Sparta this week.It was good to know I’m not the only idiot who does this kind of thing.  I was more gobsmacked that he was teetotal.  Well done that man!

The Damage:

€15 ent

€4.10 beer (500ml)

€4.10

= €23.20

The Tunes:
Mogwai Young Team (Mogwai)
Geogaddi (Boards of Canada)
The Collection: 1977-82 (The Stranglers)

Esprit Arena panorama

A local business shows its support.

Not the most obvious of stadium structures.

Welcome to the Esprit.

Inside the concourse.

Fans mill on the concourse.

I've been in airports smaller than this.

Fans entering the stadium.

The multi-coloured empty seats.

A plane flies over from the nearby airport.

Executives don't like multi-coloured seats.

Stadium plan.

The Braunschweig fans.

Night-time panorama.