In Elversberg, getting a seat in the stadium has become difficult. Even if you are willing to pay for one. The small Saarland club, from the region on the French border that has made its way into the upper reaches of German football in recent years, reaching the Bundesliga, is selling out not only the cheaper sections but the VIP areas too. As Bild reported, everyone is looking for a seat in a stadium that can hold 13,000 people in total: supporters, sponsors, business partners. It is a situation the club has never experienced in its 120-year history. The Kaiserlinde, as the ground is unofficially known, has effectively become one of the most sought-after places in the region, not only for watching a match but also for meeting people, doing business and building relationships. The team’s success is being felt off the pitch too.
Even those who might normally expect preferential treatment are struggling to get in. Vincent Wagner, the 40-year-old coach, has said he can get hold of just four tickets for his own team’s matches: “It’s easier to find gold,” he said in a recent interview. The reason is simple: people like Elversberg, particularly now that they are winning. The team is generating excitement that goes beyond its results, turning the stadium into a meeting place for the whole region, for football supporters and Saarland’s business community alike. The boom in the VIP area captures that change, but it has also created a very practical problem: supply can no longer keep up with demand.
The club is therefore expanding the stadium, with work on the Nordtribüne expected to take the overall capacity to 15,000. That may seem a modest figure for a club playing in one of Europe’s five major leagues, but it is more than the population of Spiesen-Elversberg, where the club is based: just 12,683 people. Until a few years ago, Elversberg was a club used to operating well away from the spotlight. Now, getting a ticket for a match at the Kaiserlinde can be a matter of luck, or of knowing the right person. Even more so after an excellent start to the season, with seven points from four matches, the same tally as Mainz, Werder Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen.
And it is no coincidence that the wider Saarland community – the state that includes Spiesen-Elversberg – is looking at this small club as an opportunity to put the region on the map, or perhaps simply to raise its profile.