Some 5,000 welcome Kaiserslautern back home after Cup defeat
Around 5,000 fans gave German Cup runners-up Kaiserslautern a warm welcome back home on Sunday after the 1-0 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen in Berlin the previous day.
Departing coach Friedhelm Funkel and his squad greeted the supporters at the Stiftsplatz square.
"It wasn't always easy. It wasn't always easy with the players, with the people in charge - but it wasn't always easy with me either," Funkel at the end of his tenure.
He saved Kaiserslautern from relegation to the third division and defeated south-west rivals Saarbrücken in the semi-finals.
"But we pulled ourselves together. The team always delivered at the decisive moment," Funkel said.
Kaiserslautern had the numerical superiority during the entire second half after Leverkusen's Odilon Kossounou saw a red card in the 44th minute.
But, already losing 1-0, they still weren't powerful enought to fight for a comeback.
"A big thank you to those who were there, who are here today," captain Jean Zimmer said.
Defeat hurt even more than expected
Zimmer admitted that the defeat hurt even more than expected.
"We knew that we were playing against a overpowering team. It hurts more now than we thought a defeat would hurt," he told reporters after the match.
The travelling supporters put up a huge show at the Olympic stadium in Berlin that started with a dazzling choreographed visual display in the stands before kick-off and kept going with flares and fireworks throughout the game.
"What happened in the stadium was incredible. When you know the faces, the people who stand there, the amount of money and time invested to put up such a show, I guess we can be proud of it. Sadly we couldn't reward them," Zimmer said.
Kaiserslautern expects fine for fan behaviour
Despite the great support from the fans, the club expects a huge fine from the German Football Federation (DFB) as the use of pyrotechnics is not allowed in German stadiums.
The stadium announcer asked the fans several times to stop lighting up flares and fireworks, but the warnings were useless. The match had to be interrupted for a few minutes after the start of the second half due to a large cloud of smoke from the Kaiserslautern fan block that reached the pitch.
"If a game has to be interrupted, then the fine is of course higher. I hope it won't be quite so high," Kaiserslautern managing director Thomas Hengen said.
Funkel also praised the support from the fans, but he said of the use of pyrotechnics: "That's never good. It should be better discussed with the club so that it doesn't happen so often in future."
DFB president Bernd Neuendorf sharply criticized the behaviour of Kaiserslautern fans.
"That doesn't belong to football. It's not fun, it's dangerous," he told the Welt TV on Sunday.
He said that 10 people needed medical care because of the flares and fireworks. Some of them suffered minor burns.
"I hope this will bring some common sense. I think it's always terrible when people wait until something bad happens," Neuendorf said.
In the past season, the DFB had to issue fines to Bundesliga and second division clubs due to the use of pyrotechnics almost every week.
