Bundesliga/BL 2/BL 3.

Getting lost in a football utopia

Dortmund supporters celebrate after winning the Champions League quarterfinal second leg soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid at the Signal-Iduna Park in Dortmund, Germany, April 16, 2024

HELLO, how’s your week been? I’ve spent the last four days having a wonderful time in a football utopia, otherwise known as Germany.

Imagine a world where tickets to a Champions League game cost €18 bought officially on the day. Where you can drink anywhere inside and outside a stadium. Where fan culture is strong and powerful and appreciated, not watered down for corporate homogeny, or denied or overrun by overexcessive state power, rules and regulations, edicts and bans.

Where displays of pyrotechnics, smoke bombs and firecrackers are not only allowed, but encouraged and welcomed. Where using your mobile phone during a game is emphatically frowned upon, and people filming themselves on YouTube for personal gain mocked and given zero credence.

Where fans are free to stick two fingers up at governing bodies through free speech via in-stadium banners that clubs wouldn’t dream of ripping down. Where big communal events are seen as something to embrace, not a public order issue. Where public transport is specifically organised around fixtures, so as to better move crowds quickly, conveniently and safely.

Where capitalism in the sport is frowned upon and socialist values, valued. Where a genuinely authentic communal experience is prioritised over rampant commercialism and corporate blandness.

Where clubs are firmly prevented from being sold to the highest bidder, nor being allowed to ride roughshod over tradition, such as forbidding late kick-offs that inconvenience travelling fans, the scrapping of replays that imperil lower-league clubs financially, nor helplessly facilitating the gradual erosion of sporting integrity through financial doping.

If you think you’d savour any, or all of the above, then you really must visit Germany for a football match.

This week I was fortunate enough to watch two Champions League matches in Germany, one in Dortmund situated in the North Rhine-Westphalia area of this vast country, and one in Munich, in deepest Bavaria.

While Dortmund is the largest city (by area and population) of the Ruhr as well as the largest city of Westphalia, the population is still “only” about 600,000 — approximately the same size as Bristol.

Yet, with a capacity of 81,365, the Westfahlenstadion — fans avowedly refuse to call it by its sponsors’ name — is the largest in Germany, while Die Schwarzgelben (The Black and Yellows) as they are nicknamed, have the largest average attendance of any domestic football club on the planet.

The region is devoutly working class, for the area was built on the prosperity of coal, steel and beer.

This was the place which powered the might of industrial Germany during the early to mid-20th century.

Think the England’s north-east, or Yorkshire before Thatcher obscenely decimated the toil of the workers during the miners’ strike and her cruel and heartless social polices struck out at steel and other endeavours. In Dortmund, while the mines are all shut, and the steel mills silenced, the beer still flows freely, and is a source of regional pride.

Not having a ticket for the game, the Westfahlen has always been on my bucket list. Undeterred by the fact that in England, you have to either pay through the nose for a season ticket or fork out for an invariably worthless membership, I decided to visit the stadium and at the very least, sample the atmosphere outside.

I went to buy a ticket at the city’s central station, the Hauptbahnhof, but a crowd control steward in a high-vis jacket told me not to bother, as transport is free for ticket-holders on the day of a game.

“People do not respect little rules any more,” he said impishly, despite me being unable to tell if he was joking. “That’s OK, I don’t have a match ticket,” I replied, with the man unsure if I was joshing or not. I wasn’t. I really didn’t have a ticket.

At the “Stadion” metro station, I found a stone wall with a hatch, where vendors wearing their own clothes — not branded with a club moniker — sold strong German lager for under €5.

I got talking to a fan over a beer and a mustard-slathered bratwurst — to go with my sliced-and-diced curry bratwurst I had the previous evening on my arrival in dark, wet and cold Dortmund.

There has been plenty to talk about in German football this week. Bayer Leverkusen led by former Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso and powered by ex-Gunner Granit Xhaka, not to mention Alex Grimaldo, Florian Wirtz, Jonathan Tah, Jeremie Frimpong et al, who steered the unfancied team to the first Bundesliga title in its history.

We got talking about Leverkusen — or Die Werkself — “the Factory Team,” another Bundesliga side who are proud of their industrial antecedents.

“I cannot hate them, the way I hate Schalke,” the supporter told me, gripping his plastic glass, a little tighter, when speaking about his bitter northern rivals in the Revierderby. “Or Munich.” He almost spat the word with distaste.

In Germany, not for nothing are Bayern Munich called FC Hollywood. I told him I was an Arsenal fan en route to Munich. “It is all about the money,” the fan said rising to his theme. “We hate Harry Kane because he earns €25 million a year. It is not normal. Even [Manuel] Neuer who was part of our team that won the World Cup in 2014 only earns 20 million,” as if that were explanation itself. “No-one at Leverkusen earns more than €6m.”

He then shared something which I thought was just a moan at the time, but was indicative of something far deeper into the psyche of most fans in the country. “German football hates money,” he told me. “We prefer authenticity.”

The man was certainly true to his club. As reflecting Dortmund’s nickname, he wore a black and yellow shirt. On his head was a black and yellow bobble hat. On his shoulders was a black and yellow scarf.

“It will be crazy tonight,” he assured me. He was right.

After picking up an official ticket from the box office for a mere €18 — via a visit to their superstore, which was emblazoned in black and yellow and sold everything from branded toasters and coffee makers to official Dortmund honey and driving gloves, I made my way into the ground. Security was tight and I was searched as forensically as if I was at an airport.

For my €18 ticket I stood behind the goal in Block 14 along with 26,000 others in the Gelben Wand or Yellow Wall in a crowd of 81,365. Incredible. Or unglaubich as the Germans would say.

Germany is as passionate about football, as anywhere I have been in the world. I’ve watched the game from the Arctic Circle to the Azteca to Africa, Central America, Asia and Australia, Barca, Belgrade and Belfast to Moscow and Madrid — and a fair few places in between — but I have to say the frenzied atmosphere at Borussia Dortmund was simply off the scale.

The best way to describe it was by saying that standing in the vast Gelben Wand was akin to a communal experience.

On a cold evening, to stand in among such a throng was to warm the soul as much as the body.

I tweeted breathlessly outside the stadium after the match — as you were not encouraged to use mobile phones in Block 14 at least — “What a game. What a result. What an atmosphere. What an experience. Fair play to Borussia Dortmund and their incredible fans,” adding: “The relentless noise was incredible. The way they get behind their team for the whole game was just immense. They never stopped signing and chanting and clapping and just generally making a proper racket. Absolutely loved it. What an experience.”

It was true. Supporters, young and old, tough-looking skins in black hoodies smoking weed, amid mothers clad in black and yellow bobble hats, stood on the terraces together, singing their hearts out from first until last.

I was disconcerted to find a huge skinhead link arms with me and sway — along with 26,000 others — as if we were all at drunken wedding before the bar shut.

They — or should I say we — swayed in unison, the prelude to an impenetrable song that built mournfully until, emotion at a peak, boomed with power, and feeling and passion.

After the noise had subsided momentarily, I asked the skinhead what the words were. Peremptorily, he simply said: “It is a song about loving Dortmund.”

At times we were requested to all sit down — all 26,000 of us — even though I hadn’t sat down since I was last at a James concert. The requirement only added to the sense of community. Everyone was equal. Everyone was in it together.

The Dortmund songbook was rich and varied. And loud. Incredibly loud.

Mostly launched via a man sat atop a metal fence who held a megaphone and thundered exhortations with such feeling I feared for his health. As it appeared the veins in his neck weren’t so much protruding as pulsating.

The fence he was balanced on, while looking back at 26,000 people, busy conducting their symphonies, was plastered with black and yellow stickers portraying a skull and crossbones that said fearsomely “Sons of Goldkrone.” Another read “Wolfpac” with a ferocious wolf pictured. While others noted where geographical chapters. “Oespel Original,” “The Unity” “Westfahlen Borussia.”

To be in the Yellow Wall, was to experience being part of a vast, swaying, flowing, amorphous mass. A caravanserai. A travelling fair. A cross between a music festival and a bazaar, where all you want to do is watch and wonder.

I was lucky in that the game I watched turned out to be a classic against Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, whose 4,000 fans were game too, with a tremendous pyro display at the start. But I feel it wouldn’t have mattered if the match had been 0-0 against an Essen XI.

For 90 minutes there was a tumult of noise, relentless, frenzied, fevered.

In the annual money league Dortmund were ranked as the second-richest sports club in Germany. Under the astute stewardship of sporting director Michael Zorr, BvB have assiduously cultivated a reputation for sourcing and developing young talent, while staying true to a compelling attacking style, prior to selling them on for a hefty profit — and then unearthing many more. Think Thomas Frank’s Brentford on steroids.

Their breathless 4-2 victory over Atletico certainly proved the point. 2-1 down from the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final in Madrid, Borussia played as if they were possessed. Soon pegging the deficit back through Julian Brandt and Chelsea loanee Ian Maatsen.

Madrid made it 2-0 on the night and 3-2 on aggregate before Mario Hermoso’s header deflected in off Dortmund defender Mats Hummels moments after the interval.

Angel Correa gave Madrid a 4-3 aggregate lead when he fired from close range in the 64th minute.

However, Dortmund equalised once again in a thrilling second half after Niclas Fullkrug headed Marcel Sabitzer's cross on 71 minutes — prompting utter pandemonium in Block 14 as well as the entire Westfahlen. 180 seconds later the tie was sealed when Sabitzer struck Dortmund's winner to make it 4-2 and seal the tie 5-4 on aggregate — to set up a tie with moneybags PSG.

At the final whistle no-one left. Everyone wanted to savour a special moment. People hugged and high-fived with delight, in delirium, amid chaos. And joy. Deep, deep joy.

At the time of writing, Dortmund sit in fifth, one spot away from the last remaining official Champions League spot — although given English football’s desperately poor showing at the quarter-final stages of all three pan-European tournaments this week, Germany could qualify for another spot, with Edin Terzic’s impressive team in pole position to benefit.

Let’s hope they do so.

Because after making the six-hour train journey south to Bavaria the day the very next day — on a fast, clean train on an efficient service that cost as much as a 20-mile train ride to London from outside the capital — to witness Bayern Munich knocking out my beloved Arsenal on a miserable evening, I really want to return to Dortmund.

To experience the Yellow Wall once again. And that incredible atmosphere.

To return to a country where capitalism in sport is frowned upon and socialist values, valued. Where a genuinely authentic communal experience is prioritised over rampant commercialism and corporate blandness.

In other words, football utopia.