Austria Wien 2-3 Dinamo Zagreb, Tuesday 27th August 2013

Austria Wien 2-3 Dinamo Zagreb, att. 10,500 (capacity) (Champions League Play-off, 2nd leg)

Welcome to ...

A packed house (capacity: 10,500) at the Generali Arena, as homesters Austria Vienna took on the Bad Blue Boys of Dinamo Zagreb.  The prize?  A £10m windfall in the form of Champions League qualification, and a greater chance of repeating the whole process next year.  1. win league 2. scrape through qualification process 3. get mullered by everyone and finish bottom of the group.  Well, that's the plan.

Almost crane-like.

Pre-match was a doddle. Met up with Londontyke exiles Bob and Mo in the ‘Irish pub of the Year 2004’ for a couple of beers, before being guided into the southern Viennese suburbs via U-bahn and tram to Austria's ground.  And well done Bob's season ticket holding workmate for helping sort tickets.

Mo looks pleased to be in.

I know what the Austrian press has since written about the Bad Blue Boys (Dinamo’s ferocious support), so let me tell you another perspective of life as a Dinamo fan: Get to ground early; queue in orderly fashion, then watch as ALL the home fans are ushered past you and into the ground.  Although potentially running a narrow gauntlet past said fans, they stood patiently in their ‘kettle’, awaiting their turn.  Thus, Bob, Mo, Sarah and I took our seats.  10-15 minutes in, flares started landing on the pitch from behind the stand.  I stood on a chair. Over the dividing wall and lo!  The Zagreb fans STILL hadn't been allowed in.  Now, I know my team has little chance of ever getting a game in Europe, but I know how p***ed off I’d be if I was kept outside while the game was going on.

A flare lands on the pitch.

Presumably this was all an attempt to keep the fans segregated.  However, it's not Zagreb fans’ fault that they had to walk through the home turnstiles to get to the away block.  And when Zagreb scored, you could see pockets of Croatian fans on three sides of the pitch in the home ends, celebrating.  What do you do when the match is a sell-out?

...while away fans remain kettled outside.

2-0 up from the 1^st leg (against the odds), Austria notch again after 5 minutes.  I’d barely settled.  We’re in for an easy time of it, then.  Not a bit of it.  Zagreb pull their socks up and by half-time are leading 1-2.  Some of their fans might even have seen the 2^nd.

Dinamo fans celebrate scoring.

At half-time I declare I'm not having another beer but will buy anyone else one who cares for it.  The beer’s horrid.  Turns out to be alcohol-free, but surely alcohol doesn't taste of anything?  Bob had an inkling beforehand but presumed the lager-coloured liquid was the real thing.  No-one had another, although I felt the Croatian calling the kiosk servers ‘criminals’ for refusing him a litre of beer didn’t know what favour he’d gained.

The teams come out.

It was all Zagreb second half.  The best Austria could hope for was a break and that wasn't going to happen.  Time and again Zagreb swept forward. It was only a matter of time.  Then it came.  Despite heroics from the home keeper, he was beaten by a looping header.  Austria's dreams of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich et al looked depleted

Hilariously (given what comes), Zagreb throw on defenders for forwards.  They had done their job, 3-1 up, through on away goals.  So the game plan was blown to bits on 82 minutes when Austria scored on a breakaway, a sub of their own bundling in a cross.

Makeshift segregation at the back of the stand.

Thereafter, the game slowed.  Zagreb no longer had the personnel to attack, while Austria were happy to wind down the clock.  Full-time, 2-3 (4-3 on aggregate) and it was joy unconfined.  One or two Austrians were even in tears.  Getting through to the group stages meant everything to these fans (and players).  It was a welcome respite to the likes of Arsenal spending the season moaning about the competition before their usual early exit.

Unbelievable!  Austria are through!  

Good luck Austria.  Their group games will be played at the national stadium (capacity: 50,000) but they were unlucky with the draw, pulling Atletico Madrid, Zenit St Petersburg and Porto.  Maybe they’ll learn from their city mates Rapid, who did the same and sold out the stadium in 3 match packages.  However, they were forced to play the games behind closed doors and offered fans league games instead of a refund.  I shouldn’t laugh.

My summer of football was at a conclusion, I could concentrate on touristing with the other half.  Now, where’s the nearest palace?

The Damage:
€25 ent

Austria Wien wall.

Anti-missile devices.

The Champs Lge banner (?) gets an outing.

The teams line up.

A couple of Austrians show their colours.

Match action.

Zagreb fans still kettled after kick-off.

Down the touchline.

Club shop.

Spot the policeman.

RB Leipzig 1-1 MSV Duisburg, Sunday 18th August 2013

Raisonballsport Leizig 1-1 MSV Duisburg, att. 13,758 (3.liga)

Outside the Main Stand.

A fortnight after seeing RB lose a DFB Pokal game in front of 30,000, it's back to the 3.liga.  3 games in and both teams have had promising starts, two wins.  It's a chance to cement a leading berth

Getting to the stadium half an hour before kick-off, the queues were horrendous (on the main stand side).  Still, there were ticket booths on the opposite side so I headed there.  I knew there was a rabbit off though when the number of pedestrians dried up around the tower above the ‘Festwiese’ (the field next to the stadium).  The booths I had in mind were shut (the entire upper tier on that side was closed).  So they weren't expecting a big crowd.  As it was, 13,000 odd turned up.

The RB ultras, all-seated unlike every other German stadium.

Duisburg, forcibly relegated due to financial misdemeanors, have no respect for the parvenus of Red Bull.  A mainstay in the upper divisions, their fans bemoaned the lack of tradition of RB.  But whatever you think of the politics, the Red Bull Arena is simply one of the finest in the world, built within the old zentralstadion.  As the away turnstiles were next on our clockwise tour of the stadium we (my better half was also with me) slipped in there.  Although technically lower tier, the view was still fantastic, high up in the corner.

Match action.  RB go close.

The match started at a pace.  Leipzig could have been 3-0 up in 10 minutes, Bundesliga build-up play followed by 3.liga finishing.  Then MSV took the lead, a quick break, the forward clean through, he took it around the keeper, but with the angle diminishing and a covering defender sliding to the line, he had the wherewithawal to pull it back to give his mate a tap-in.  Cue celebrations in the stands for the ‘zebrafreundes’.  Why zebras?  MSV’s hoops are BLUE.

Harry the zebrafreunde was here.

The lead didn't last.  Within 5 minutes Red Bull got a free kick 25 yards out, which was curled left-footed into the corner.  Good finish, but essence of slow motion about it.  Keepers need to learn to take a couple of paces before diving.  And that was it.

After an entertaining first half, precisely nothing happened in the second, as evidenced by zero injury time.  Since when does that happen in a second half these days?  I missed the highlight at half time, the Duisburg fans waving rubber rings in the air and throwing them on the pitch.  Dunno what that was about.  They also unveiled a banner, probably the one I photo’d outside the stadium.  Red Bull are going to have to put up with more of this if their ascent continues.

The Duisburg players come to salute their following.

At the end, MSV fans cheered the result.  Despite being a big fish in a small pond, they're not optimistic of an automatic return.  I guess they’re relieved to even have a team following financial problems.

The Damage:

€15 ent

€3 beer

€3 badge

= €21

Match action, looking towards the main stand side.

Sektor C completely empty.

The beautiful curve of the stand.

Sektor D closed too.

Looking towards the far corner.

Even the seat patterns are beautiful.

Duisburg players take the acclaim.

Exiting over what used to be the terrace of the old zentralstadion.

What's not to like?

'Zebras have tradition'...RB do not.

The facade of the old main stand.

Wehen Wiesbaden 1-1 Preussen Munster, Saturday 17th August 2013

Wehen Wiesbaden 1-1 Preussen Munster, 3.liga (att. 3,916)

Welcome to ...

An early season promotion duel?  Dunno, but with Wehen being top of the table after 3 games and Preussen having narrowly missed out last time, could be.  Tiny Wehen are confounding expectations though still not dragging in the fans, 3900 gathered today, of which the best part of a thousand came from Munster.  The stadium (think Glanford Park, but with standing on metal terracing at either end) was a mere 10 minutes from the railway station.  Get off the train, turn right at the main concourse and keep walking, past a fleet of policemen.  With relatively meagre support, don’t pin your hopes on following anyone.  In fact, when the crowd of 3,961 was announced, it actually got a cheer.   At the station I saw more Eintracht Frankfurt fans, heading for their home game with Bayern Munich.

A Wehen fan weighed down by scarves.

Once I'd bought my match ticket (in the home end), I had a nose around and came across the Helmut Schon Sportpark, next door.  This athletics stadium had seen Wehen play here on occasion, though they were based in nearby Taunusstein.  In the meantime, this was the ground of another Wiesbaden team, SV Wiesbaden.  Anyway, the terraces still exist, so you can get a flavour...

Athletics adjoining football.

After the death of a thousand cuts that was watching  Saarbrucken yesterday,this was a much better game.  Faster, more skilful, more attacking.  Preussen looked an excellent outfit in the first half and then struggled to hold on.  They also had some clever deadballs, with dummies and movement which always ended with them getting a shot off (shame about the shot).  So after all the work on the training pitch they went ahead in rudimentary fashion.  The corner was lobbed straight in the box, the keeper saved the header and the rebound was bundled over the line.  One or two half chances then went begging and Wehen hold on for nil-one at half time.

The Wehen ultras.

Second half, the traffic changed direction.  Or technically remained the same (it was the teams wot changed around).  This was good for me, as the action continued to be towards my end.  Preussen barely had a sniff as Wehen took the game to them, roared on by their 50-strong ultras (average age: 15).  The centre forward in particular, strong, quick and able to dribble the ball looked their best hope and he had a hand in the equaliser, drawing the defender than laying the ball left for his mate to hit home from 12 yards.  Honours even, points shared.

The Preussen fans.

At full time I was straight out, via the ticket office.  This was another stadium which takes your bag off you, though there was plenty of space inside. I even managed to make the 16:03 (this was a 2pm kick-off, btw).  Fabulous.  Enough time to collect my bags in Frankfurt…. no panic on as with later trains…..to find that my outward bound to Leipzig was 30 minutes late.  Oh well.

The Damage:

€10 ent

€3 beer (x2)

€3 wurst

€2 glass deposit

= €21

The Tunes:

Loss (Mull Historical Society)

Stick Around For Joy (Sugarcubes)

Ticket office

Back of a stand.

Enter here.

Here, there...metal everywhere.

Terracing in the Helmet Schon Sportpark next door.

Welcome to ...

Club shop wares.

Metal overload...even the terracing.

Looking towards the far end, pre-match.

In the seats...

Match action.

More match action.

The Main Stand.

Today's crowd is ...

A floodlight overlooks the scoreboard.

The cheerleader takes a breather.