Of course, it was a special point that this evening of the return of 1. FC Kaiserslautern ended with a moment that is part of the club's DNA at Betzenberg.

The goal in added time, which gave FCK a 2-1 win over Hannover 96 in the opening game of the second Bundesliga, was almost a pinch too much kitsch for a game that had already offered enough romantic football stuff.

Friday night, floodlights, 40,000 fans.

Atmospheric sparks that jumped from the stands onto the lawn and back again.

The "Betze" trembles, the FCK lives.

Well, at least back in the football lower house.

Pirmin Clossé

sports editor.

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"Lautre is widder do" was emblazoned on a poster at the foot of the west stand at the start of the game in broad Palatinate dialect.

And it didn't take long before fans and team made it clear what this might mean for the first season after four years of third division sadness.

The first free kick a good 30 meters away was applauded after four minutes as a great opportunity.

The first successful slide cheered like a goal.

And when after eleven minutes Hannover's Julian Börner distributed a small welcome gift from the second division and invited FCK to make it 1-0 with a momentous back pass through Mike Wunderlich, the noise from the stands felt a lot more than after a comparatively mean opening goal in the first season game.

With the "Betze mentality"

Kaiserslautern's coach Dirk Schuster had taken a lot of trouble beforehand to point out what, in his opinion, was the opponent's extraordinary quality.

During the press conference before the game, he therefore wrote a kind of short profile for each player in Hannover's hypothetical starting eleven.

Usually garnished with a reference to their respective Bundesliga experience.

As far as the playful means were concerned, his team could not "top" the Lower Saxony, said Schuster.

But one hopes to be able to counter this superiority with the famous "Betze mentality".

Passion and duel toughness

When the game was played, it quickly became apparent that Schuster was right with both assumptions.

In fact, Hanover was the more experienced team and the Kaiserslautern team felt that, especially in the second half.

The FCK convinced with a concept that has probably proven itself from the district league to the Champions League for playfully inferior teams: With passion, tough duels and a very straightforward offensive game.

"What made us what we were last year, we brought to the pitch today," said Wunderlich, the goal scorer.

Kraus heads in

Most of those involved would have accepted without complaint that this fight, which was fairly balanced with unequal weapons, seemed to end in a draw after Havard Nielsen scored (80th).

But then FCK, who were struggling for relief in the final minutes, were awarded a corner kick.

It is true that Schuster wished "that we would do it briefly and let the clock tick down".

Instead: cross, header, overhead kick and central defender Kevin Kraus, who scored the winning goal from close range (90+1).

"Of course I'm glad that the team decided against the coach's opinion," said Schuster.

"Happy and Proud"

However, the word that he used by far the most frequently in his analytical remarks on the game was still: “happy”.

He was "happy and proud" about a "lucky win" thanks to a "lucky corner kick" that now released "happy spectators" into the night, said Schuster.

Sports Managing Director Thomas Hengen made a similar effort to put the emotional high in the right context.

“We know what we can do.

We know what we can't do," he said.

"We're on the rise and you could see that today."

Goal scorer bone dry

Even the protagonists of the stirring final minutes sounded astonishingly sober a short time later.

Goal scorer Kraus, for example, who probably had the most reason for great feelings, stringed together a few footballer phrases and spoke of "three out of 40 points" against relegation, which one would have gotten now.

Goalkeeper Luthe, who switched from Union Berlin to FCK before the season, nevertheless stated: "If we look to the future, it must be so uncomfortable for every opponent to insist on the Betzenberg.

That’s when football gets really interesting again.”

And so, in the end, it was up to the fans to provide this intoxicating evening, including a real "Betze moment" in injury time, with a reasonable portion of exuberance.

When the game was over, the ranks boomed: "FCK is back." This time, however, without the Palatinate dialect.