Beauty & the Beast as Bundesliga fans return
It's time to revisit an old conversation now fans are back in Germany
Hello to some new subscribers! If you’re new and you've signed up after the last piece about the Bayern defence (thanks Grace Robertson too for sending some of you my way, I’m sure) then this one is a little different. Much less analysis-y. We’ll get back to that with something on Hansi Flick’s Germany next week.
For now, it’s all about full stadiums finally returning over here in Germany.
After two painfully long years, the Bundesliga looked like the Bundesliga again this weekend. Football without fans is nothing.
It wasn’t full everywhere — 35,000 watched Bayern Munich’s 4-0 defeat of Union Berlin, with the travelling support the only corner of the stadium to make much noise at all — but various grounds were packed and buzzing.
Like at Stuttgart, where relegation-threatened VfB came from behind to win 3-2 against FC Augsburg. Isn’t it beautiful?
The return of fans means the return of not just colour and noise but also personality.
“M. Weinzierl, piss on my leg” one sign held up in the home end read.
This references a bizarre (and false) rumour that Augsburg boss Markus Weinzierl had done exactly that to teenage January signing Ricardo Pepi. He hadn’t, of course, but that hasn’t ever stopped football fans before. Like I said, the league regained its personality this weekend.
Or, rather, the league was reclaimed by the people it belongs to. After so long watching football with empty stands, the sight of fans is a constant reminder of what it all really means.
But it wasn't all good.
The return of supporters also saw the limitations of technology used to help officials back under the microscope. Mainz fans were left clueless when goal-line technology wrongly awarded them a goal on Saturday. First they didn’t know how they’d scored, then they didn’t know why it was taken away.
Football is not a spectacle for television and the communication (or lack of it) left those in the ground with more questions than answers. That needs to be addressed now that capacity crowds are allowed again.
Still, Mainz fans wouldn’t have minded as they won 4-0 and the players spent a long time on the pitch for photos, shirt signing, shirt gifting and the like after the final whistle. Fans everywhere are used to feeling that they have been taken for granted and this is an opportunity to change that. The Bundesliga loves to market itself off the back off its vibrant atmospheres and passionate support but the same supporters that create those moments are punished for banners that are too opinionated or for using the same pyrotechnics that the league then points to on social media to prove how great the product is.
And that doesn’t mean that fans are always in the right either.
VfL Bochum supporters waited over a decade to return to the top flight and then missed the promotion party last season. Just 14,000 (half the stadium) were present for the draw with Borussia Dortmund this season, which was at least more than the 10,000 who witnessed an incredible 4-1 win over Bayern Munich.
At the last moment, the capacity limits were essentially lifted for them ahead of Friday’s match against Borussia Mönchengladbach. At long last, 25,000 could pack into the Ruhrstadion. Unfortunately they only saw 68 minutes of action before the game was abandoned because an assistant referee was struck by a (full) beer cup thrown from the stands.
“I was really caught off guard, it hit me out of nowhere, full force on the back of the head,” the official, Christian Gittelmann, said after the game.
“I was diagnosed with a bruised skull and whiplash.”
Fortunately, Gittelmann plans to return during the international break, as scheduled, after he returned home from hospital over the weekend.
“It’s obviously just a shame” Bochum sporting director Sebastian Schindzielorz told DAZN. “It’s the first time we can play in front of 25,000 fans again and the game doesn’t reach a sporting conclusion.”
After a similar case at St. Pauli way back in 2011, the result was awarded to Schalke (who led 2-0 when the game was abandoned) and the Hamburg club were forced to play their first game of the following season at least 50 kilometres outside of the city.
It’s a two-way street. Shortly before the pandemic, the Bundesliga pledged not to hand out collective punishments for actions by individuals anymore. Fans matter and they matter more than the league has suggested in recent years. The return of full stadiums should celebrate that but it is also down to individuals not to take their privilege for granted and to appreciate that all others — players, coaches, officials, rival fans — are people as well and need to be treated as such.
The DFL were caught at a crossroads that the pandemic relieved them of two years ago. Fan punishments they had promised not to hand out were given right before the league headed behind closed doors. Football fans in Germany are essentially viewed as and treated like criminals before they have done anything, with police too quick to jump in with force or pepper spray as soon as a group of fans use pyrotechnics or launch protests.
We’re back again two years later and we’ve already seen Gladbach fans violently beaten by stewards at Stuttgart. Who look like the hooligans here?
Fans must understand their privilege, especially after two years of watching football from afar. It has become easier and easier to dehumanise the actors on the pitch, something the pandemic has only accentuated.
But any demands for respect, any urge not to take things for granted, any insistence that privilege must be recognised, has to go both ways. German football is lucky to welcome fans and fan culture back into stadiums. Now it has to address the issues it has with how it treats those the game belongs to.