It’s been a while since I (or anyone for that matter) wrote one of these. I haven’t been to a new stadium for quite a while (except the WC, but those stadiums were generic), but just got the chance to travel to Naples to see Union Berlin in the Champions League. My love for Union Berlin is no secret here, so clearly we were in the away end. My wife came, mainly because we had a vacation end of September/beginning of October to the Amalfi Coast and Capri. I forced us to come back early so that I’d be home in time for the first UCL game in Berlin. This caused us to skip Naples on that trip. Initially, this was quite an unpopular decision with 1/2 of the humans in the candylandriots’ household. However, thinking quickly, I suggested we return a month later by air (we had driven with the dog) to see Union Berlin play at Napoli, visit Pompeii, eat some pizza, etc. This clever save quickly restored my relationship status, as she agreed that two trips to Italy are definitely better than one.
We arrived to Berlin airport at 8am for our 9:10am flight. We have this process down really well now at the new airport, with reserved space in the security line. Strangely enough, someone starts calling my wife’s name, and it’s one of the security personnel. I’m thinking, “this isn’t a good start.” But it was one of her clients, who was working in our security line, who was excited to unexpectedly see her. After saying hello to her, we passed through a bunch of people in red drinking beer already, and boarded our flight to Vienna. Many clapped as we landed in Vienna, and a small “Eisern Union!” chant started.
We had two hours in Vienna before leaving for Naples. Grabbed a quick bite (which ended up being very important) and took off for Naples. The pilot played to the crowd upon landing and wished Union Berlin success in the game, and people started singing “Europapokal-Europapo!” I’m guessing 2/3 of the passengers were Unioners heading to the game, one exception being the 16-year old boy sitting next to me, swiping through Napoli pictures on his phone. He had a sick “Scarface” backpack that made me laugh to myself too.
Took the bus to our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and the woman at the hotel gave us totally confused information about how to get to the game. She also told us to watch out for the dangerous Union Berlin fans. I hadn’t realized that there was an incident the night before, where some 300 Union (and apparently quite a few Gladbach fans, who have their own rivalry with Napoli) showed up and had some trouble with the police.
We finally figured out how to get to the stadium by train. On our walk to the train station, only wearing a black Union shirt so as not to arouse too much attention, I got a double “fuck you” from two guys on a Vespa. When we finally got to the station nearest the stadium, we exited and started walking towards it. I was still just wearing the black shirt, carrying my scarf and red jacket in a ball. I got about 10 meters from the exit of the train station, and was grabbed by a police officer. He told me to go stand over there. I’m like, “what did I do?!?” There was a woman there in a Napoli scarf who explained to me in German, that for our own safety, we would not be permitted to walk to the stadium. Some other Union fans had just piled into a white van and were sped off. We were told another van would be there to pick us up in 5 minutes.
Twenty minutes later, still no van, and some of the Germans are getting restless. I walked into the Tabacchi to get a beer while waiting, and the guy in front of me bought the last three. Went back outside and finally a van showed up. We piled in, and Mario Andretti sped off so quickly I could feel the g-force as we took off, dodged through traffic, running red lights while like 10 fans held on.
Before getting in the van though, we were trying to talk one of the people into letting us walk. He was adamant that it was not allowed, telling us we looked “too German” to get through safely. My wife is constantly confused for Italian or Spanish in Berlin (she has olive skin—her grandparents are Sicilian!) and I have dark hair. But both of us have blue/green eyes, and apparently that was too much.
The reason I tell you all this is because when we finally arrived at the visitor’s section, there was a very confused couple of Napoli fans, with tickets for the main stand, with us! They both had blondish hair, and apparently were racially profiled to be Union Berlin fans.
The stadium is kind of a dump. You’ve seen it on tv probably. All concrete, hard plastic seats and the old track. I can tell you it doesn’t look any better in person. We got very, very heavily patted down. First by stadium staff, then by riot police. We got in to the concrete structure. My wife checked the toilet, and decided we’d both be better off not having any drinks (naturally, there was no beer in the visitor section), as the women’s toilet was unusable. I didn’t visit the men’s, which couldn’t have been better. Not having eaten or drinking anything since Vienna may have paid off.
We had a little more than an hour before kickoff. As soon as we entered the stadium, a Union fan told us not to sit down and to sing twice as loud as normal tonight. I had explained to Danielle already about the not sitting part, so told her to rest up for the game.
Once the players started coming onto the field, they got a warm welcome from the 2500 Unioners. We started singing and cheering. Then, once the announcements of the lineups started, we all kinda realized that the acoustics of the stadium don’t match the “Fußballgott/Eisern Union” chants very well. But that didn’t deter anyone. And the Napoli fans definitely let their thoughts about Leonardo Bonucci be known.
The game got underway, with Union attacking our end. Seemed like Napoli had the better of things, and they earned corner after corner. Union fans were LOUD however. This apparently was not appreciated, because we heard an explosion. Then flying explosives started clearing the wall and landing among Union Berlin fans. People rightly scattered and ran away from the wall and resettled in the stairway by us (we were on the aisle on the section further from the wall near the Napoli ultras, so we weren’t in direct danger). The PA asked people not to do that it Italian and German, getting nasty responses when saying it in German, as it clearly was not us. And it just caused everyone to defiantly sing louder, which invited more bombs, louder singing and so on.
About 30 minutes in, Napoli scored, and that sinking feeling hit everyone. The Union players instantly crowded the referee though, and I was hopeful for a VAR review. After what felt like eternity, i finally saw him run over to the screen, and I started to relax a little bit. Finally he made the rectangle gesture with his fingers and we all celebrated.
It was short-lived though, as Napoli scored a no-doubter a few minutes later. After 12 consecutive losses and a month without a goal, when was this gonna change?
At the end of the half, Union lined up a free kick from outside the area. I said to Danielle, “I think he’s going to score here.” Josip Juranovic, who had a tough night defensively, made a beautiful shot that hit the base of the far post, and squirted harmlessly away, as the half ended. Ugh.
The second half started with more of the same. The explosions started to subside, as Napoli finally sent some stewards up to the ultra section. But they still couldn’t put a stop to them completely. And finally there were some good fireworks, as Becker and Fofana took off on a speedy counter with one defender to beat. Becker took the shot, and I could tell it was going to be saved by the keeper, and my head fell into my hands. But then a massive cheer, as the rebound went to Fofana and he (apparently) put it away. First goal in 32 days and it was a big one. Celebration and jubilation all around. More explosives. But we were even with the Italian champs, playing in such a hostile environment. Although I thought we were still mathematically alive for the last 16, I found the bad news that H2H is the tiebreaker instead of GD, so a run in the Europa League is the best case scenario. Realistically, it’s probably more where we belong, and I love the thought of them getting back to the alte Försterei.
It seemed that Union were more likely to score for the rest of the game, but that may be a bit of bias as it seems that Napoli just earned an endless number of corners. And that was how the game ended, with Leonardo Bonucci, the guy they were calling Leonardo di Perdi (as Union had lost every game since he’d joined the club) clearing away the final threat to seal the draw.
You could see the relief on the faces of the players as they came over to salute the traveling fans. Then we sat. And waited. And waited some more. While chatting with my wife, she asked me a question that absolutely stunned me: “Jeff, why were Union and Napoli playing each other tonight? Is this a friendly?” She wasn’t joking. I now know how little she must listen to me. Twenty-five years together and she still finds ways to make me absolutely speechless.
I know that they wait to send the traveling fans out later, but it took them well over an hour before the stewards had cleared out the few thousand ultras at either end that seemed to be looking for a fight, and they finally let us out a bit after 10pm.
When they released us, it was to a closed road, with buses lining both sides of it. There was no choice, this is how you’re getting back. They were taking us to the port of Naples, which actually was super-convenient for us, but not for a lot of other people. We found an empty bus and found seats, but it quickly filled up. We chatted with the people next to us, and one guy asked if we were on his flight to Budapest. We said no, and then he said, “you’re the woman who knew the security guard at the airport!” to my wife. He was right behind us in the security line in Berlin that morning.
He was there with two friends and his father. One of his friends is a Ukrainian guy who had been living in Germany since 2003, and started going to Union games then even though they were 3rd or 4th division back then, and he lived in Erfurt, 300km away. But he comes to every game, and actually showed us some videos he had of the stadium back from 2005, before the fans rebuilt the stadium. It was a trip, and also funny to see these friends from 20 years earlier too. The German guy from the security line told us he had just been in the US, visiting New York, Philadelphia and Hartford?!? He had gone to see Kevin Behrens’ debut for die Mannschaft.
The bus took the most circuitous possible route to our destination, taking close to 80 minutes to get to the spot that was only like 6km away. But by the time we finally got there, most of the Napoli fans were gone. I removed my jacket and kit, and just had a black t-shirt from a Thurston Moore concert on and we hustled back to our hotel. Once there, I changed and tried to find something to eat or drink. Everything was closed, until I decided to search for a kebab shop on Google maps and I found one open until 6:30am like 500 meters away. Picked up some döner and a ton of water, brought it back to the hotel, and went to sleep to go check out Pompeii the next morning.
As we walked around Naples after visiting Pompeii, we would come across some people who would quietly ask “Eisern?” to one another if they heard some German or thought they recognized someone. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY was wearing red or calling ANY attention to themselves in Naples that next day. Which was the smart move, because I’m not sure I’ve ever been anywhere that seemed so absolutely devoted to one club and really one man, Diego Maradona. It actually is really sweet to observe when there aren’t bombs going off near you.
https://youtube.com/shorts/gg78zx1yGdU?si=M28hwv21hOo2bAlM