True. But for that to happen we will have to pray than clubs like Duisburg, Mainz Aachen or Unterhaching never get promoted again. Crowdwise probably Karlsruhe & Nuernburg would be benefitial. Once we see finished grounds in Munich Frankfurt and Cologne, things will continue to get better again. Personally I think the Allianz Arena should be a bit bigger. But considering that TSV 1859 have to play there. And that a great percentage of their supporters boycott the Olympiastadion as is, probably a compromise has been met. Interestingly the Stehplatz=Sitzplatz ratio at the Dinghy will be 1:1, which is unlike things now at the Oly. At derbies where both curves are terracing they get 69000. At Bayern and I'd assume 1860 home match where only one curve is standing the capacity is 63000. At Champions League matches it is 59000 with everyone moving up the back of the Suedkurve to stand in their "normal" spots, meaning quite a few empty rows down the front of Block U. JF
Mainz and Aachen will have in the BuLi a good attendance (and good atmophere), they've in Buli 2 at the moment too. Duisburg will follow. OK, Unterhaching must'nt be.
I wonder about Leipzig, though. It would probably sit empty after 2006. Perhaps it should be the permanant home ground of the German NT.
Leipzig is used to having an empty stadium. This new one is build on the ground of the old "Zentralstadion" which could host over 100.000 people, but was used only for special events like european-cup games or the Leipzig-derby and since the end of the eastern regime it hasn´t been used at all. Maybe VfB Leipzig will recover one time in the far future, so they can use it then.
But the VfB has much the bigger fan-base, so even if they have to go towm even further they have a big chance of recovering. The DFB will never give up the VfB since it is club with biggest tradition in germany. They are something special, while Sachsen is more a suburban club. They even call themself the "Leutzscher", so how shall they ever reach the status of the No.1 club in Leipzig?
Are you sure VFB has a bigger fanbase? I`ve heard that Sachsen has a lot of fans, too. So I wouldn`t be too optimistic about VFB having more fans than Sachsen.
But where are all those fans when the VfB plays ? Sachsen has the higher attendances (even when both still played in the same league).
Sachsen has more die-hard fans, but they almost reached there potential. The VfB lost many because they are dissapointed about the president and all those people bringing the club to bancrupcy. The VfB also has fans outside of Leipzig, but they don´t drive to there as long as they play so low.
I don't want to pretend to be an expert on East German soccer, i am not (although i was born there), but as far as i know even in the GDR league Chemie's attendance was always higher when they played in the same league. Not that this neccesarly means that you are wrong, i just found this to be interessting.
Thanks for the replies. I read that there are rumors of merging Sachen and VfB Leipzig, though that would piss off most of the fans. Maybe the situation with Lok (VfB) is so desperate that they would entertain such an idea. LOL BTW, how many people live in the city of Leipzig?
Merger??? HAHA. There would be riots to DEATH if that would happen. It´s even forbidden to think about that. Leipzig is big enough to host two big clubs. It has 500.000 citizens.
It's too bad that the clubs are in the lower divisions right now. I've read that there's much rivalry between the fans. They could be rocking the new Zentralstadion if the clubs were doing a bit better.
Here are some pics of the "Zentralstadion". Unfortunatly I never had the opportunity to watch a game there, cause I´m too young, but my father ones was there when Lok(VfB) Leipzig had a UEFA-cup game there and the stadium was packed with people. He said it was awesome. At first the old one: And now the new: Looks kind of strange with stands of the old still there....
From looking at those pictures, my guess is that they preferred to use the infrastructure that was already there rather than go through the expense of rebuilding it. It does remind me of one of those sci-fi movies/TV shows where people would walk on platforms on their way inside a spaceship. Perhaps "Buck Rogers" inspired that design. J/K Also, there some similarities of this stadium to the design of FC Porto's Dragao Stadium and the Oita stadium in Japan. Take a look at these: http://www.portugal2004.pt/en_estadios/estadio_dragao_fotos.html http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/02/en/da/c/simg/oita.html Now, I'm not saying that they ripped off anybody but that whoever designed the Zentralstadion thought that this was the best way to have a certain number of seats and a roof without compromising their main idea.
I like the old "Zentralstdion" cause it "was" a real bowl who can amount a crowd over 100.000. I saw Leipzig vs. Dresden there.
I just got done looking at some of the photos in stadionwelt.de. Some of those scenes were absolutely incredible. But what I want to know is this: who organizes these fan demonstrations and who pays for them? It must be a huge task! Does everybody go along with it?
I'm by no means a Dortmund fan but it's my goal to at least once in my life attend a game of Dortmund standing on the Südtribüne http://www.stadionwelt.de/Stadionwe...russia_Dortmund/0304/BVB-fck0304/BVB-fck.html Awesome!
The good guys from "stadionwelt.de" make a lot of cool pictures. As a fan of Schalke04 I can't forget to write these links: http://www.stadionwelt.de/Stadionwe...tmo_Schalke_04/0304/lev_S04-0304/lev_S04.html http://www.stadionwelt.de/Stadionwe...e_04/0304/SCHALKE_bvb0304/SCHALKE_bvb0304.htm And this year Schalke is 100 years old, and the best present we do on 30.01.04, beat D......
http://www.schwatzgelb.com/fanservice/attendances0304.htm Last weekend the Bundesliga again topped the average attendance alltime high. An average of 45.995 attended the matches! At all the season average is 37.069 at the moment.
I'm just disappointed that Hertha rarely gets over 40,000 in a 55,000 stadium. If they really want to support their team, they should come out and cheer them against BVB on Saturday and sell out the Olympiastadion.