German Bundesliga 2, Sunday 23rd November
The penultimate weekend in November saw me make a day trip to Nuremburg to take in a Bundesliga 2 contest between 1. FC Nürnberg & DSC Arminia Bielefeld in what was a first visit to the Max-Morlock Stadion on a cold crisp day in Southern Germany in my latest adventure in Europe.
After landing in the city early on the Sunday morning, and taking a stroll around what is a lovely city indeed, we made our way to the ground for what was a battle between two sides who were in mid table, FCN were in 11th spot but only five points above the drop zone, but they were in a much better position than they had been.
Manager, former German striker Miroslav Klose, no less, had been under immense pressure but a run of five games unbeaten leading into this contest and back to back wins in their last two had seen them pull away from the dangerzone, and if they could make it three straight wins then things would be looking even more rosy for the home side.
Bielefield themselves had lost four on the spin until a recent run of three games unbeaten had pulled themselves up to 9th in the standings, two of those being wins too, and they came into this contest two points above their opponents, so both sides had hit a good spell of form so to speak and therefore a decent battle was expected on a cold crisp afternoon.
The walk up to the stadium from the railway station had kiosks along it where you could purchase bottled beers and local food, and the entrance to the ground was a typical set up for Europe, with security ready to scan your ticket and give you a once over to make sure you had nothing dangerous on you to take into the stadium, once you got through that it was more kiosks and bars before you headed into the arena itself.
The Max-Morlock Stadion is a unique shape, and holds around 50,000, there were just under 34,000 in attendance, we were up near where the vocal home support was, pre kick off saw them all holding their scarves above their heads in what was a good spectacle, although once kick off came along the crowd stayed silent for the first twelve minutes as in many other stadiums, there was to be no atmosphere created during that period on this day due to current fan policy discussions in what was a protest against that.
However once that period of silence was over, the normal atmosphere at a German game took hold, and the hosts certainly had the better of the opening forty five minutes but despite this they only really tested the visiting keeper Jonas Kersken when Rafael Lubach saw a powerful effort beaten away at the near post, and it meant despite the hosts dominating the ball and applying most of the pressure, it was goalless at the half.
FCN though were to take control of the contest even more than they had done when they netted two quickfire goals in the early exchanges of the second period, the half was only three minutes old when the home side were awarded a penalty, I initially thought the referee had given a goal kick, but what actually happened was after Mael Corboz had caught Julian Justvan inside the box, a quick VAR review saw a penalty given, and a chance for the deadlock to be broken.
Lubach, who had gone closest to scoring in the first half, duly stepped up to convert the spot kick and hand the hosts a deserved lead, a lead they doubled just eight minutes later when Berkay Yilmaz created havoc once again and his ball to Finn Becker saw the latter apply a powerful left footed effort which beat keeper Kersken at his near post, joy for the hosts and their fans, they now had a two goal cushion.
At this point you thought the hosts would go on and win 3 or 4-0, they were in full flow, but as the second half wore on Bielefeld, who had been abject at best so far, began to apply more pressure on the hosts and see much more of the ball, despite this though they didn't really test hosts keeper Jan Reichert as the home side dealt with whatever the visitors could muster.
The closest Bielefeld came was a powerful effort from Leon Schneider which rattled the crossbar in the 89th minute, and before this the hosts could easily have been three goals ahead had substitute Adriano Grimaldi not headed a brilliant chance wide of the post from close range, but the visitors just never looked likely to find the net and FCN duly ran out winners and make it three wins on the spin and six games unbeaten now.
That takes them above Bielefeld into ninth spot, with the visitors dropping a place to tenth, if the hosts can keep this run of form going they could be looking upwards rather than down, although it would take a big effort to get amongst those promotion places for sure, the visitors see their brief unbeaten run come to an end here, and quite frankly they were fairly poor in this contest and only really applied any sort of pressure once they were two goals down.
Another good experience though and a thoroughly good outing with some good people, a long day but a great day, Nuremburg is a lovely city and I recommend a visit if you get the chance, and it's also a good stadium to visit too.
Full time 1. FC Nürnberg 2 DSC Arminia Bielefeld 0
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