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RB captain Peter Gulacsi with trophy and blessed teammates
Photo: FILIP SINGER / EPA
Suddenly it was very quiet.
Minutes earlier, the Olympic Stadium had been bubbling, a cauldron of red.
The tens of thousands of Freiburg fans paid homage to their coach Christian Streich, more than ever a kind of father figure for all of them that evening, the RB Leipzig supporters cheered the cup victory after the nerve-wracking penalty shootout – and suddenly it was all over.
The award ceremony was about to start, but instead everyone watched in trepidation as paramedics and doctors fought to heal a collapsed man on the sidelines.
The man, said to have been a fan, who mingled with the crowd of photographers after the final whistle, was treated for almost a quarter of an hour, the stadium had to watch.
The fans immediately understood what was appropriate.
They were silent and started to set up a backdrop of light with their cell phones, it was a poignant moment.
On an evening that had been emotionally challenging before.
All debates had a break
The Olympic Stadium held its breath until the moment the stadium announcer said the man was in stable condition.
Aware that terms like drama no longer applied to football.
And the debate about whether RB Leipzig is a worthy cup winner or rather an expression of what is worth criticizing in top football had a break.
In the previous days, the discussion about RB flared up again with astonishing vehemence and exasperation.
Amazing because it seemed as if the club had just landed in German football like a spaceship.
And not a successful first division team for six years, two cup finalists, semi-finalists in the Champions League.
Everything that can be argued for and against RB has been known for years.
Construct or Club, representative of the East or just another chapter of Western takeover?
Anyone who hasn't said anything about it has never loved football.
The special constellation
But it was probably the constellation of this special duel that brought all these topics to the surface and to the social media so brutally.
With SC Freiburg, a supposed alternative was on the table, unlike the previous cup finals against Bayern and BVB, which can hardly be used as an argument for underdog football.
So everything was brought up again.
But there was also football, and in these 120 minutes of play it was not primarily the Red Bull system against the Tannenzäpfle principle on the pitch, but two teams who, regardless of all this, with all the passion they had, fought for their first cup win differently long club history wrestled.
The game was just as heated, but here it was handball or not, penalty or not, and of course the VAR, which is only slightly inferior to RB in terms of enemy imagery.
It was about football.
Exciting football.
Spurred on by the fan camp
It was good for this cup final that, for the first time in many years, neither Bayern nor BVB were in it, but two previously untitled players: fourth in the Bundesliga against sixth, it was exactly the duel at eye level that these final standings suggested.
A clash between two teams who were so keen to have that first title for themselves.
Spurred on by two fan camps who also wanted to prove something to themselves and to each other.
The curve, which is normally occupied by Hertha fans, became a surging Red Sea of Baden residents, a backdrop against which even the often-maligned lousy acoustics of the Olympic Stadium were powerless.
And like the sea of fans, so did the game.
Superior, snappy Freiburg, who not only won the first half 1-0, but also in terms of tactics and structure.
Then the red card for RB national player Marcel Halstenberg at the beginning of the second half, RB's rearing up, rewarded by the equalization of the outstanding season best Christopher Nkunku, the breathless extension with three Freiburg aluminum hits, the controversial decisions of referee Sascha Stegemann, and all of that culminating How could it have ended otherwise, in a penalty shootout.
RB emphasizes mentality
RB coach Domenico Tedesco then spoke of an "amazing performance", praised the "cohesion" and spoke again and again of the "mentality" - a word that normally belongs to the toolbox of football traditionalists.
Cohesion, mentality, passion - that evening RB hoarded these old football values for themselves.
The coach himself had acted like a Duracell rabbit on the sidelines throughout the season and got off lightly with a yellow card from Stegemann.
His opponent Christian Streich is actually said to be like a Rumpelstiltskin during the game, but this time he found his match in Tedesco.
Proof of how much was at stake here for the club and the coach.
For the first time you had something like the role of favorites in a cup final.
Losing another final, going out of the season again without a title: It would have been difficult for Tedesco to keep the version of the "super super season" that he had previously spread credibly for everyone.
So it was precisely the dismissal situation that had put RB in an almost hopeless position that awakened RB's spirits.
Before that, the team had something to lose, and you could clearly see that.
When they were behind and outnumbered, that no longer applied: "In the end, maybe that's why we equalized," said goalkeeper Péter Gulácsi before he was allowed to lift the trophy as captain.
Charm figure Mintzlaff
The team, whose playful and, above all, individual quality is completely beyond doubt, had also shown a side that evening that you would not readily credit them with.
“Get it all out” has become a popular and also ridiculed super phrase in football in recent years.
The players from RB Leipzig, who fought against the resistance of this game, they did exactly that: they knocked everything out.
Leipzig's board member Oliver Mintzlaff, something of a stimulus figure for all RB opponents, also saw winning the cup as compensation "for everything we had to endure and read".
Such sentences are a very good basis for the debate about RB Leipzig to continue.
