HDC Security I agree that for the most part the HDC is a nice stadium, but there certainly were a lot of "strict ass gestapo security idiots." I met Renate Lingor's family outside of the stadium and later I heard that Renate's father who didn't speak English was given a very difficult time for attempting to bring in his video camera. Too bad no exceptions were made even for family members who had traveled all the way from Karlsruhe, Germany to see their daughter play in the World Cup Final.
I'm just looking at this thread for the first time and am wondering why they weren't consistent with the reporting of the attendance figures for the HDC doubleheaders?? I attended all four matches and there was no way that there was more than perhaps 7-8 thousand for Match #15 between Russia and Ghana. Most of the crowd came during the second half and they were mainly Australia and China fans arriving early for the second match. My group arrived very early to beat the 405 traffic and there was probably less than 3 thousand fans there at the start of that first match. We actually got to the parking lot before the gates opened and were surprised to see the "gestapo security" crack down on two middle-aged Asian women for attemping to sit outside of their car in folding chairs and have something to eat in a parking lot that was 99% empty. It is one thing not to permit tailgating, but I saw the HDC security continually use very poor judgement when deciding how to enforce their rules. At least one German fan told me that he was going to write a letter complaining to FIFA about the extreme security at the HDC and the way he was treated when he attempted to hold up his German flag in celebration after his country had just won the World Cup.