Enter Dortmund s "Devil s Home Stadium"

Our newspaper's special correspondent to Germany, Lu Wenao

The Bundesliga is the first stop for many Asian players to land in Europe. At the invitation of the Bundesliga, a Global Times reporter recently went to several German football clubs and felt the football enthusiasm that was far more shocking than in front of the screen.

Because there are stadium tickets in the German League, many clubs have removed the seats in the stands of the hardcore fans, allowing more people to enter the venue. Schalke 04, a veteran giant in Ruhr District, has not lost its performance to the middle and lower reaches of the Bundesliga in the past two years, but the fan atmosphere has not fallen out at all. On May 2, Schalke played against Paderborn at home in 04. The Feltings Stadium attracted more than 62,000 people to the court. The "Legend created by fans" banner was raised at the bottom of the north stand, and multiple giant banners were hung on the top stand, fans waved blue flags, and Schalke fans played with various tricks in one stand.

Schalke's "dead enemy" Dortmund Club has declined this season, but it is still in the upper Bundesliga. The permanent population of Dortmund is only 600,000, while the Westfaron Stadium is an average of more than 80,000 people to watch the game. The fan base is very solid. As the well-known "Devil's Home Stadium" in European football, the interior decoration of Westfaron Stadium, built in 1974, is covered with yellow and black color matching. The passage to the media center also reads in black yellow on the black background, "Prussia Dortmund brings together people from different generations, men and women, and people from various countries." Thanks to the club's success in recent years, the press room facilities at the stadium, which can accommodate 120 people, are also very modern. In addition, non-righteous broadcast reporters can also go to the player's appearance channel for interviews after the game.

Compared with the above two "big clubs", Mainz Club in the middle of the Bundesliga has two Korean internationals, Lee Jae-sung and Hong Hyun-seok, and its game with Frankfurt attracted the South Korean U16 national team to watch. Before the game, a group of Korean students gathered early outside Mainz Arena. The stadium is far less than Schalke 04 and Dortmund, but the west stands are still filled with red and white jerseys from local fans, which is very spectacular. What surprised the reporter was that many Mainz fans cheering songs were also heard in domestic arenas, but the lyrics were different, which shows that football and the fan atmosphere themselves can become a language that transcends races. As the Bundesliga said, "football should be like this." ▲