FC Saarbrucken Cup dreams?

[Piethagoram]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68703922

[DangerousSausage]

Can't believe I forgot this in my other post. I'm watching this on TV tonight!

Saarbrücken's story is amazing. The German cup is seeded, with the lower division team being guaranteed a home draw against a team from the Bundesliga or the second tier. This guarantees income, but makes it very hard to progress far. Saarbrücken have beaten Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Mönchengladbach to reach this stage. I only hope it goes ahead, as their pitch is a shambles.

I've seen them in Mannheim several times as the two sides spent several years trying to get out of the fourth division. Always a good occasion and self-deprecating fans. Hope they smash the potato farmers from Kaiserslautern tonight. 

[super_ram]

It's always good to see the Davids getting the better of the so called Goliaths,though not so when your own team gets beaten by a percieved inferior side.I won't be watching as I have a previous engagement tonight

[Robbie]

They've had a fairy tale run and I hope for them it continues. 

Didn't know that the German Cup was seeded which makes their run even more remarkable.

What is so sad about the modern game is that we rarely see a lower league club get to the later stages of cup competitions.

I will try to keep an eye out for the result. Keeping my fingers crossed for them.

[DangerousSausage]

The cup dream is over, they lost 2-0 tonight. Kaiserslautern parked the bus in the first half and scored their first attempt on goal, a header that went straight through the keeper's legs after about an hour of play. Saarbrücken's forward play seemed to consist of crosses and high diagonal balls straight onto the heads of the grateful guests.

It's been an amazing story for Saarbrücken, but unfortunately they're not the ones going to Berlin. Instead it'll be a Kaiserslautern team who are in acute danger of relegation from Bundesliga 2.

[Robbie]

Gutted for them @DangerousSausage however this team should hold their heads high. A 2:0 defeat is still a creditable result against a top side.

Their great run should have earned their club lots of money such a share of the TV and admission receipts to help them in their league next season.

And they'll be the talk of the German press for a while too.

 

[DangerousSausage]

Kaiserslautern are far from a great side @Robbie, they're third bottom of Bundesliga 2 and only one point clear of automatic relegation. They're the lowest-placed team Saarbrücken have played in the competition, and it could easily be a league fixture again next season.

For Kaiserslautern, reaching the final is a worthy story too. However, it poses a problem. If they finish third from bottom, they'll play a two-legged promotion/relegation play-off against whoever comes third in the third division. The German Cup final takes place between these two legs. So they could quite possibly win the cup and then get relegated four days later! 

[Robbie]

@DangerousSausageSad Kaiserslautern have come upon bad times but in the 80s & 90s I think they were in the top division. 

Just looked on wiki and they are 11th place in the all time Bundesliga table.

They've won 4 German championships in their history and have got to the quarter finals of the champions league in 1999.

Apparently, they won the German Championship in the 1997/98 season being the only club to win after being promoted. 

Somehow I don't think we'll see that again or in the PL for that matter 

[Piethagoram]

 

[DangerousSausage]

Forgot to reply to your comment @Robbie. I've been to Kaiserslautern a couple of times. The town itself is a little smaller than Mansfield and is uninteresting. The only interesting thing about that place is its football club. They play in a HUGE ground (nearly 50,000 capacity) on top of a massive hill behind the railway station, and they make a decent fist of filling it too. The town itself is far too small to sustain a club like that - they draw fans from all over a large region stretching from Saarbrücken in the west to Ludwigshafen in the east. They were part of the furniture in the Bundesliga until recently, but have fallen victim to mismanagement and only returned to Bundesliga 2 last season.

My own team in Germany, Waldhof Mannheim, have a major rivalry with them. There's a lot of bad blood between the clubs due to the teams' time in the Bundesliga in the 80s (to cut a long story short) and they drew 1-1 in the last game I attended before the season was stopped due to covid. Some impressions are in the link, if you're interested!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7R2bqkjmlU

[Robbie]

@DangerousSausageWatched the video thanks, looks like there's lots of passionate fans over there. Not sure the authorities here would tolerate all the flares though.

I noticed that there seems to be a lots of fans standing,  I've always thought that standing fans do increase the atmosphere at matches.

I googled it about German standing areas and  Borussia Dortmund have 25,000 standing in one stand.

Seems the Germans are much more advanced in having safe standing areas at their top grounds  than UK do.

 

[DangerousSausage]

That game was at Waldhof's ground, which holds 26,000, so a little bigger than Meadow Lane (albeit with only 15,000 seats). And there's no safe standing there! The home end is actually seated, but has been used as a standing area for years. The corners are terraced, but old-style with normal crush barriers. The away end is three quarters seated, part standing, but no one sits down for a derby It might need a bit of an upgrade if they ever make it back to Bundesliga 2. Kaiserslautern's ground was partially rebuilt for the 2006 World Cup and they've got safe standing.

Your typical Bundesliga ground has a big standing area (possibly the whole stand) behind a goal, and an area in the corner for away fans too. There are exceptions though - Darmstadt's fans traditionally stand along the side of the pitch, and they integrated a terrace into their new stand which opened last year. They've got a terrace behind the goal too, but it's one of those tin pot temporary stands so doesn't hold that many.