Damage in the Box!: KARLSRUHER SC (Wildparkstadion)

After the 55 minute journey from Sinsheim to Karlsruhe, Saturday evening was spent in the quite splendid Vogelbrau hausbraueri, where the beer was excellent and the food fantastic.

It must have been good as it went unnoticed that upon walking back to the hostel at around midnight, the temperature had dipped to around -13°C!

There was plenty of time to kill in the morning which allowed us to get a prominent parking space on the ring road just along from the ground. This would assist us greatly in our escape to the next game.

The morning had brought only a small rise in the temperature, where it was now up to a positively balmy -8°C. There was never any danger of the game being called off though, with the undersoil heating earning its corn. After tickets were purchased, for a very reasonable €10, pre-match was spent in the Karlsruher club house, where by chance we bumped into a Karlsruher supporter who was from Preston, who moved to Germany 11 years ago. A very interesting conversation indeed.

The Wildparkstadion is situated on the main ring road to the North and is very easy to find. The Wildparkstadion is a classic old ground with large banks of terraces. The capacity is around 30,000 but, with Karlsruher struggling at the bottom of the 2.Bundesliga, crowds this season have been dwindling to below half that.

Having said that there was a cracking atmosphere inside the ground, made up by over 500 Aue fans which, with the day's weather and early kick off, you have to give them credit for travelling.

After a sluggish start the game came to life when Erzgebirge took the lead after 17 minutes when Ronny König headed home a free kick. Within 5 minutes though the homesters were level when Pascal Groß low shot found it's way into the corner of the net, via the post.

The rest of the half was pretty even as both teams attacked each other, creating decent chances, however it was all square at the break. The cold was beginning to bite so I took the opportunity to get some Glühwein during the interval to try and warm up!

The second half was just 10 minutes old when Karlsruher completed their comeback and grabbed what proved to be the winner. Hakan Calhanoglu lifted the ball over the Aue defence for Steffen Haas to chase down and, as Erzgebirge's keeper rushed off his line to close the ball down, Haas lobbed the ball over him and into the unguarded net.

Within seconds of taking the lead, Karlsruher were reduced to 10 men when Delron Buckley was shown a straight red card for throwing a punch at Jan Hochscheidt, who had been a constant thorn in the side of Karlsruhe and was easily Aue's man of the match.

This red card however didn't cause the homesters to much discomfort and seemed to galvanise them to hold onto to seal the points, if anything Karlsruhe maybe should've extended their lead. The win also helped to lift Karlsruhe of the bottom of the table, where they were replaced by Hansa Rostock.

All that was left for me to do was get out of the ground as quickly as possible and get onto the autobahn for the final game of the weekend....