Euros Postcard – Berlin briefing from the famous mile long fan zone

The UEFA EURO 2024 Trophy is displayed at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, on April 25, 2024 in Berlin, Germany.

The UEFA EURO 2024 Trophy is displayed at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, on April 25, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Photo by Maja Hitij - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images

Macdara Ferris reports from Berlin

We have reached the end of the group stages and say goodbye to eight teams. So long Scotland, Serbia, Croatia, Czechia, Albania, Hungary, Poland and, unluckiest of all, Ukraine, who exit with four points.

There are 16 sides who remain now and move on to the last 16 which begins on Saturday with a clash in Berlin between Switzerland and Italy before host nation Germany take on Denmark later that evening in Dortmund.

There was a dramatic conclusion to Group F on Wednesday night when Georgia defeated Portugal 2-0 and all hell broke loose when in the ‘country rebrand’ derby Türkiye got a late winner over Czechia.

Your extratime.com reporter watched those games from the Berlin Reichstag fan zone where they were being shown on multiple screens. It was the Türkiye tie that had most eyes on it – unsurprisingly given the numbers of those of Turkish descent who live in Germany.

They certainly enjoyed the dramatic conclusion to the game which sets up a last 16 match against Austria in Leipzig next week.

The fan zone is located under the shadow of the German parliament and around the corner from the Brandenburg Gate (where both the BBC and ITV have their studios).

There were still some Scottish fans hanging around singing ‘No Scotland, No party’ but the party seems to be getting on alright without them after their team’s traditional early exit.

The Reichstag fan zone with a capacity of 10,000 is not to be confused with the adjacent Brandenburg Gate viewing area. That fanzone stretches back along Straße des 17 Juni into the Tiergarten with multiple screens to deal with a capacity of up to 100,000 – they are calling it the biggest fan zone in the World. 



A massive metallic 60m wide x 20m high goal has been placed behind the Brandenburg gate and the venue is being used for all Germany’s games, those in Berlin’s Olympiastadion and for each game of the tournament frou the quarter-final onwards.

Berlin is probably the birthplace of the modern tournament fan zone as my memories of fan zones before the World Cup in 2006, seem to be more about watching on TV trouble on Marseille’s Prado beach during France 98.

In 2006, FIFA instigated the official Fan Fest, which has been very successful – and lucrative. The figures quoted for that World Cup were of a sale of 3.5 million litres of beer and 3.5 million bratwursts consumed by 18 million visitors to the fan zones during that tournament.

There was the sight of hundreds of thousands of Germans cheering on their national team from that venue during their Sommermärchen / summer’s fairy tale run to the semi-final of the tournament.  

Attending games back then, I enjoyed the fan zone in Hamburg adjacent to St. Pauli’s Millentor Stadium on the Heiligengeistfeld near the Reeperbahn – they are using that area again this time around, while in Frankfurt there were big screens floating in the River Main enabling two Fan Zones either side of the river.

A standout memory from that World Cup for me was the Germany v Ecuador game which I watched from the old main stand in the Glückauf-Kampfbahn stadium in Gelsenkirchen, where the fan zone was located – the stadium where Shamrock Rovers played Schalke in the 1969 European Cup Winners Cup.



When the anthems played ahead of the game, everyone stood in the stand and with those out on the pitch, to belt out the national anthem as if they were in the ground where the game was being played.

At the 2014 World Cup, you could take games in the fan zone on the famous Copacabana beach, while in 2018 in St. Petersburg the big screens were located in Konyushennaya Square, adjacent to River Moyka and the Field of Mars park, right below the stunning onion domes of Church on the Spilled Blood.

The less said about that or the beerless fan zone for the Qatar World Cup (and there was only the one fan zone) the better maybe!

In this tournament I watched the Germnay v Switzerland game in Augustusplatz in Leipzig - rebranded from its East Germany name Karl-Marx-Platz.

Berlin's Brandenburg Gate fan zone will have a busy day on Saturday.

The Switzerland v Italy game will be beamed across from Berlin’s Olympiastadion at 6pm local time with Germany taking on Denmark three hours later.

I will be reporting from the early game for extratime.com but will be hoping for no extra-time so that I can make it across to enjoy a bratwurst while watching that Germany game in the Tiergarten. 

 

 

About Macdara Ferris

Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile