Hot Event expected - German Division 3 but much more
Guys - this is a hot one even only happening in division three of the German football! But I can tell this is a special match which I remember from my youth as I am a supporter of Kaiserslautern and the battles against Mannheim always been very intense in all aspects!
On with some details
After 22 years 1. FC Kaiserslautern and Waldhof Mannheim face each other again in the league. In the run-up there are provocations. As already outlined it is one of the most explosive derbies in German professional football. The 7th matchday in the 3rd league is coming up with this high-risk game, because for the first time in 22 years the first teams of both clubs face each other in a league game.
The latest news explains the explosiveness of this derby: The Mannheim police took a weapon from a Waldhof fan, with which he had posed recently in several mob videos on the Internet.
Other incidents also caused horror long before the kickoff. A bridge at the Mannheim city entrance was smeared with a graffiti message, a few days later the answer followed: At the "Elf-Freunde-Kreisel" at the foot of the Betzenberg, two figures had their heads cut off and their backs smeared with blue paint.
Already a few weeks ago, after the ascent party of the SV Waldhof, the provocations started when at a fan party in Mannheim tasteless songs were sung against the FCK legend Fritz Walter, who died in 2002.
Actions such as these cause consternation among the clubs who both will not tolerate these actions and should perpetrators be identified here, the clubs will also become active. It concerns in both cases completely nonsensical actions, which have nothing to do with association love or faithfulness.
But why is this duel so explosive?
The rivalry between the two clubs began with the rise of the Mannheim club to the Bundesliga in 1983. The club, which was then coached by cult coach Klaus Schlappner, had no stadium suitable for the first division and had to move to the nearby Southwest Stadium in Ludwigshafen.
Many Kaiserslautern fans felt that this was a break-in into their territory. Waldhof became more and more popular in the surroundings of Ludwigshafen, in Kaiserslautern one feared for the autarchy in the Kurpfalz on the left bank of the Rhine. A permanent dispute was programmed - and a growing dislike developed between the two clubs.
The 14 Bundesliga duels between 1983 and 1990 were always accompanied by riots. One of the memorable matches took place on 15 April 1987 in Ludwigshafen, Waldhof won 4:3. Karl-Heinz Bührer from Mannheim regularly had hot duels with the former FCK keeper and current goalkeeper coach Gerry Ehrmann at the so-called "Kurpfalz-Derbys".
The goalkeeper legend from Lauter likes to play with the opponents from Mannheim - and nothing has changed about that until today. Ehrmann recently said at a fan meeting at Waldhof: "Do they still exist?
Yes, they still exist - and in sporting terms the Mannheim team have already made an exclamation mark in the current season and are in fourth place much better than FCK in tenth place. The fear of riots is nevertheless great, sometimes even superior to fans staying away from the game. Before the match, both clubs wrote an open letter to the active fan scene.