But Can They Do It At Prime Time In Berlin?
Ahead of Arminia Bielefeld's first-ever DFB Cup final, I try to make sense of hope, history, and the unfamiliar feeling of success.
I grew up in a low-income, working class family. I learned how to make ends meet with little to no money.
We were good at saving, stretching, surviving. Every Deutschmark, every Pfennig had to do its bit. There was always just enough. Never more. And that was normal.
So when I got older and started earning my own money – actual money, money that wasn’t already gone the moment it landed – I was clueless. I didn’t know how to have. I made stupid purchases. Treated myself to nonsense, then lay awake at night worrying I’d ruined everything (which I did, more than once).
I was overwhelmed by abundance.
And that’s exactly what this season with Arminia Bielefeld feels like.
Being a Bielefeld fan teaches you many things. Mainly patience. Humility. Being content with being miserable.
We’ve seen dark seasons. Long, wet ones. Points deductions, financial chaos, existential dread. We’ve had promotions, sure, but more often than not they were bookended by collapse. Our DNA is forged in trauma. We’re the team that’s never really invited to the party, but always shows up with a six-pack anyway. We not only know how to do it on a cold rainy night in Ingolstadt, up til now that was all we knew.
There’s a kind of bitter pride in that. We kinda relish it. It’s the eastwestphalian mentality (which many Brits can relate to). Sure, things suck, but they’re our things. I mean, come on – we speak of the 2014 Darmstadt game like we survived bloody Vietnam.
But this season?
Champions of the 3. Liga.
Promoted to the 2. Bundesliga.
And now – and I still can’t say this without laughing nervously – DFB Pokal-Finale. The first in our club’s history.
Berlin. Olympiastadion. Prime time. National TV. No Tuesday night, no low-stakes backdoor kickoff. Proper final. Lights on. Country watching. Us.
The club is ready. The players are ready. Honestly, I’ve never been so sure of a squad’s mentality. They’ve earned this. They’ve clawed, run, fought for this. They beat better-funded teams, outplayed supposedly superior sides. They’ve taken this club on their backs and dragged it into history.
They’re not the problem.
I am.
I mean, it’s not like I’m not excited. Of course I am. I can’t wait for Saturday. This is the absolute highlight of my 30+ year relationship with Arminia Bielefeld. The biggest game of my life. The greatest thing I will have ever experienced as a football fan.
But here’s the thing. Us fans – we’ve spent decades learning to suffer beautifully. We’ve mastered pain. We’ve made losing into a character trait.
But winning?
Success?
A proper final?
Where’s the blueprint for that?
The last time anything close to this happened, we were locked out. Sat in front of our TV sets while the lads got promoted in front of empty terraces.
Most of us don’t have muscle memory for success. It feels surreal. Like finding a five-course meal in your fridge when you’re used to toast. Like waking up and realising there’s money in your account – and no clue what to do with it.
Some fans know how to carry success. Bayern fans expect it. Dortmund fans crave it. Even Union now walk with swagger. But us?
We’re pacing nervously like someone just handed us a Fabergé egg and said, “Don’t drop it.”
As a Bielefeld fan, you don’t trust success. I keep catching myself imagining disaster. A red card in the 10th minute. A keeper blunder. A 4-0 pasting that confirms everything we ever feared about dreaming too big. That reflex isn’t pessimism. It’s defence. It’s habit. Decades worth of self-protection.
But it’s also projection.
Because this time around, my eastwestphalian pessimism isn’t about the team. It’s about me. A tad skeptical, maybe even, shall I say: afraid of everything that has happened. And what might happen Saturday night.
But in the end, we’re the lucky ones.
There’s this beautiful song Bielefeld fans sing:
Eines Tag spielt der deutsche Sportclub, im Finale, Finale von Berlin / Generationen sind zuvor gestorben, ohne dieses Spiel zu sehen
One day the deutsche Sportclub will play the final, the final in Berlin / Generations died without getting to witness this game
We are the lucky ones.
I’ve never been this confident in a Bielefeld team. And I don’t mean the usual hopey, blind faith sort of thing. I mean actual belief. Built on form. On team spirit. On a season full of evidence that maybe, just maybe, we’re not the same club we were five or ten years ago. Hell – not even the one we were twelve months ago.
I believe in this team. I believe they can do this. Win the whole bloody thing.
After all, why shouldn’t they?
We are, without a shadow of doubt, the underdogs in this final. VfB Stuttgart’s team market value is 330 Million Euro.
Bielefeld? 8 Million.
Our most expensive player: Marius Wörl, valued at 800k.
For Stuttgart, it’s Angelo Stiller at 38 Million Euro.
This is not David vs. Goliath. This is David’s baby finger vs. Goliath’s family. It’s stacked against us.
But we beat Hannover. We beat Union. Freiburg. Bremen. Reigning double champion Leverkusen. Stuttgart? Bring it on.
The lads did it at the Alm. Can they do it at Prime Time in Berlin?
They’re ready. I trust them. I believe in them.
Everything else is up to me.
I know how to support a mediocre, losing team. I know how to deal with being miserable most of my life as a fan. But maybe it’s time to learn something else. Something new.
Maybe it’s time to learn how to handle winning.
To hold the feeling. To let it happen.
To sing – not out of defiance or desperation – but out of belief.
So no, I don’t know if we’ll win.
But I know we can.
Together. The boys on the pitch, and us on the terraces.
Let them ask: But can they do it at Prime Time in Berlin?
Let’s give them their answer.
Together.
In black, white, and blue.
Under the lights.
Fingers crossed 🔥
We are all Arminia!