Matchday compact: All information about the Bochum game

VfL Bochum plays a home game against Schalke in Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion? In the spring of 1976 the unthinkable happened. After promotion to the top German league in 1971, the old “Stadium on Castroper Straße” was no longer up to the demands of professional football. A new venue was needed. And so, over four construction phases, the old arena slowly transformed into the Ruhr Stadium we know today. The fans saw construction site football for three seasons until the stadium was completely unplayable in the spring of 1976 when the south stand was being built. Bochum moved to the “Stadion am Schloss Strünkede” in Herne for its home games. For reasons of space, the game against Schalke was moved to its Ruhr area neighbor in Dortmund. The game brought in more spectators (45,000), but with a 4-1 defeat, nothing countable.

In 1979 the new stadium was finally inaugurated. With free admission, 30,000 spectators saw a 3-0 win against Wattenscheid 09. What began in 1911 with a wooden fence pitch and 500 supporters is now the Vonovia Ruhrstadion with a capacity of 26,000 spectators. VfL has been playing on Castroper Straße for almost a century and regularly turns the home venue into a fortress together with its fans. This is also proven by the current season, in which they have only lost three times at home despite fears of relegation. A few weeks ago even the great FC Bayern Munich had to leave the Ruhrstadion without a point.

Thomas Letsch, the head coach of VfL Bochum, at the press conference before the game: „The route is clear, also for the opponent. If Darmstadt wants to have another chance, they have to win this game. But we also definitely want to win the game. „It’s going to be an exciting game. After an international break, it’s never easy to know how a team will approach a game. We’re six points clear of the relegation place and have a home game against the 18th-placed team in the table. That’s how we’ll approach the game.“

Cloudy skies with a high of 11 degrees Celsius on Easter Sunday. The chance of precipitation in Bochum is 35 percent.

You can watch the Lilies‘ away game against VfL Bochum live on DAZN in Germany. The streaming service starts broadcasting at 7 p.m., kick-off is at 7:30 p.m. The commentator for the 90 minutes is Jan Platte, and the former Lilien professional and current Waldhof Mannheim player Terrence Boyd acts as an expert. The moderator is Tobi Wahnschaffe.

The game is also shown live in the UK on Sky Sports.

Match day! And so back into matchday mode. You can of course follow the duel between the Lilies and VfL Bochum again on Easter Sunday in the Software AG Matchcenter on our homepage. Just click on the orange button! There we provide you with lots of live data about the game. You can also be there live with our live ticker.

All fans of the Lilies can follow the duel in full length via our live ticker as well as on the fan radio. Current pictures and highlights from the game are also available on Facebook and Twitter. You can get even more live photos on Instagram.