Before VfL Bochum set off for the capital Berlin, the team completed a final training session at Castroper Straße. They were not alone in the stadium.
Three match days before the end of the 2023/2024 Bundesliga season, the stakes are high: the fans also know how much is at stake for VfL Bochum. Staying in the Bundesliga or going into the unloved relegation play-off.
Bochum travel to 1. FC Union Berlin on Sunday, a fellow rival in the battle to stay in the league. Before the VfL squad set off for Berlin, coach Heiko Butscher’s team completed a final training session at home in the Ruhrstadion.
And the players were not alone. Over 5000 VfL Bochum fans turned the final training session before the Union game into a spectacle. Pure goosebumps!
“This is an extraordinary situation and certainly very emotional. This is not normality. Everyone involved here in the stadium will get another boost from this positive madness,” said Marc Lettau, Head of Sport at VfL Bochum, enthusiastically in response to a Forecasting inquiry.
A glance at the home table is enough to prove that Bochum can always rely on their fans. Eighth place and a whopping 23 points. The opposite is true away from home: 18th place in the table and just seven points. And now it’s off to Union Berlin. Then come champions Leverkusen and on matchday 34 they travel to Bremen. So two more away games.
Days before the game, VfL professional Felix Passlack, for example, said: “Of course we miss the spectators who are here in Bochum. It’s phenomenal what goes on in the Ruhrstadion. But we have to show the same intensity in Berlin as we do at home. I believe we can do that this time and make it happen.”
The right-back continued: “It’s just important that we do what we did against Hoffenheim on Friday on the pitch on Sunday in Berlin. We simply have to do that. The whole situation at Union is not easy either. They played in the Champions League, then changed coaches and have to be careful in the table. I think we have a good chance of winning in the capital.” wozi with gp