I just watched/listened to the craziest football game I have ever seen – and I am pretty sure it won’t be beat!
The game was the second relegation between Fortuna Düsseldorf and Hertha BSC, with Fortuna having won the first one 2:1.
I watched the first half. The game started exiting, with Fortuna scoring a gaol in the 27th – second, not minute! Later, Berlin equalized, and when I drove grocery shopping I listened to the second half for a while. I got as far as a Berlin player earning himself an early quitting time via a yellow-red card. When I got back to the car Fortuna was ahead 2:1, but Berlin again equalized. Rafael was basically unable to play due to an injury, but somehow still managed to score! A few more minutes to go – so far a normal game.
And then things went batshit crazy! First, Berlin fans threw fireworks, and what looked to the radio reporter like at least a group of a hundred policemen stormed the field. The game was interrupted for several minutes. Berlin fan are know for such idiocies, basically punishing their team with the threat of abortion of the game, which can quickly mean the game is counted as a win for the other team. Stupid as hell!
Then, the game was continued, and it was announced that there would be 7 minutes of additional time. That’s a lot, but given the long interruptions before quite understandable and reasonable. Five minutes of this time were gone, with Berlin pressing hard, when this happened:
Thousands of fan swarmed the field, there was some sort of fistfight between one or more Berlin players and fans or someone (the radio reporter was not quite clear on this). The entire thing went on for what felt like a quarter of an hour, until the stadium announcer’s repeated messages and some very clear shoving and yelling by the police and the stewards as well as some Fortuna players cleared the pitch. After much consultation the referee decided to continue the game, but the Fortuna players were left pacing around for quite a while until the Hertha players came back. It was announced that Fortuna would not be counted the winner (and thus advance to the Bundesliga) until the game was officially finished, and that the game would be abandoned if a single foot of a fan was placed on the green.
That threat seems to have worked, in the end the 90 remaining seconds were played, and Fortuna managed to hold on to the 2:2.
Quick summary: hardcore footie fans have decidedly too little brains! In this case, fans of both teams brought the game to the brink of being decided by the Sports Court, and in both cases that would have been to the detriment of the fan’s own side.
dinosaurpalaeo 