It was remarkable words that Frank Buschmann, the commentator for the TV channel Sky, chose on Saturday at the beginning of his game summary of the 159th district derby between Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04.

While pictures of Dortmund's south stand with Bengal fire and dense clouds of smoke appeared on the screen, Buschmann said enthusiastically: "Outstanding atmosphere in Signal-Iduna-Park, more, with all due respect, in the Bundesliga is not possible atmospherically."

The many fans who like it when pyrotechnics flare up in the curves because it simply looks nice could look forward to an atmospheric start.

On the other hand, here a TV reporter paid homage quite directly to people who might be committing crimes.

There has been some confusion in the past few weeks in the relationship between the Ultras, who are often responsible for such actions, and the rest of the football family.

Overwhelmed Clubs

During the European Cup games of Eintracht Frankfurt in Marseille and 1. FC Köln in Nice this month, there were serious riots with many injured and even more traumatized people.

After a second division game in August between Magdeburg and Hanover, fans fought indoors and pyrotechnics are being burned off more excessively in the Bundesliga than ever before.

"It left many fans with a bad feeling that football gave the impression during the pandemic that things would always go on, even without fans," says Michael Gabriel from the Coordination Office for Fan Projects (KOS).

"Perhaps there is a motive to show now: We are back and not to be overlooked." In any case, many clubs seem quite surprised after the two years of silence imposed by the virus.

The question of how to deal with the problematic fans was not the focus for many months, but is still unanswered, as was also shown on Saturday evening in Mönchengladbach.

There, Borussia fans insulted their team's 3-0 win against RB Leipzig their formerly highly esteemed sports director Max Eberl, who resigned exhausted in January and who is now probably going to RB.

On a banner, fans insulted Eberl as a "characterless asshole", before another banner was also directed against Leipzig coach Marco Rose, who was also in Mönchengladbach: "A whore's sons' club only hires whores' sons."

Referee Patrick Ittrich had the messages removed under threat of a game interruption, and Gladbach professional Christoph Kramer said after the game: Such actions "only have to do with pure hatred and have no place in the football and sports world".

The clubs, which often work relatively closely with Ultras because they appreciate the positive aspects of their atmosphere with choreographies and chants in the stadium, seem helpless and sometimes even surprised.

"We have never experienced a day like this and we didn't think it was possible in this way," says Philipp Reschke from the Eintracht Frankfurt board of directors about the incidents in Marseille.

It was "very strange what level of aggression and hatred we encountered and of course there were reactions."

But there is also a willingness to use violence in Frankfurt, as was shown when Eintracht supporters met in the Bahnhofsviertel in August for what was undoubtedly an agreed altercation with supporters of Lech Posen.