MAGICS / Action Press, Florian Schroetter / EXPA / picturedesk.com (M)
Critics have long complained that the Allianz Stadium has become too small for the record champions and no longer does the quality of the game justice. Now Rapid Vienna is taking the bold step and leaving their stadium in Hütteldorf. The Roncalli circus is now the new venue.
VIENNA – “Walk in, walk in, animals, people, sensations!” roars circus tamer and trainer Ferdinand Feldhofer. The smell of sawdust and cotton candy hangs in the air. Children stare at the ring as if in a trance. Ultras rip their T-shirts off and wildly wave neon pink glow sticks through the air.
“Are you ready for the clown?” asks the circus trainer. The crowd cheers, Feldhofer puts on a red nose. “We were really good in the first five minutes yesterday!” he exclaims. No eye stays dry. “Voilà, and now have fun with our little ponies! Ring clear!” The Rapid midfielders trotted into the ring, slipped on banana peels, and the crowd went wild.
Perfect Deception
The performance continues with the magician and Rapid President Martin Bruckner, the “Uri Geller from Hütteldorf” (La Gazzetta dello Sport). “Be ready for an optical illusion like you’ve never experienced before,” he proclaims. The crowd holds its breath. “Record champion, record champion, record champion…”, whispers Bruckner and spreads his arms.
The audience rubs their eyes. “Wow, now I thought for a moment, there’s a top European team in front of me,” laughs a spectator. “And yet there are only eleven street clowns from the outskirts of Vienna.” The illusion is perfect. Then Bruckner pulls several excuses out of a hat. There is enthusiastic applause.
Feat “back four”
No circus night would be complete without some death-defying acrobats. The defenders show their greatest feat, the back four, the somersault mortale for Austrian footballers. They run wildly through the arena, after ten seconds three of the four artists trip over each other – all the children laugh.
New club in Hütteldorf
The Allianz Stadium will not remain empty after Rapid’s departure, FC Vaduz will use the stadium as a training ground. “Of course it’s strange when a club like Vaduz plays here in the Allianz Stadium. But there is no arrogance at all, it doesn’t matter that we are a capital and Hütteldorf just… a village with huts.”
The area has something “magical, mystical, the turf grows particularly dense, it must be the tears of the Rapid players who keep pouring down here.” Allianz Versicherung itself has withdrawn from the sponsorship contract with Rapid. “We do not assume total loss,” says the insurance company.
Krankl analysis
The performance comes to an end, Hans Krankl analyzes the performance while, with a mobile phone in one hand and an oe24 newspaper in the other hand, he casually steers the steering wheel with his knee across the parking lot. “I already liked the shape, like the Burgstaller, the magician, descended from the dromedary with a double somersault spiral.”
But Krankl still sees room for improvement: “At the end of the day you have to be honest and admit that it’s unlikely that this team can make it into the top circus league right away. It’s still a long way to Cirque du Soleil, but maybe – whoops, what was that on the street just now?” Krankl looks in the rearview mirror, a circus monkey disguised as a policeman is writhing on the ground in pain.
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