SVWW narrow defeat to Champions in season finale
Pros |
History: "We come from the depths, we come out of the shaft...!" So the lyrics go in FCE’s cult fan song. Aue is the force from the shaft. The city and the local region have been shaped by mining and its links with mining company Wismut. FC Erzgebirge Aue was known as BSG Wismut Aue until being renamed in 1993. Wismut won the East German championship three times and lifted the East German cup in the fifties. Other successes include qualifying to play in European competition in the 1987/88 season and, of course, winning promotion to the Bundesliga’s second tier, most recently in 2015.
Stadium: The roots of their home ground date all the way back to 1928, when starting out in Aue Municipal Stadium. In the meantime, FC Erzgebirge Aue’s "living room" bears the name Erzgebirge Stadium. Since the most recent renovation work, crowd capacity holds 16,485 – which is slightly more than there are actual Aue residents (16,012 as of December 2017). The modernisation was not only worthwhile for comfort reasons – a roof fully covers the stadium but there’s great viewing as well. For example, of the players’ tunnel, which now resembles a shaft and all around the stadium you will spot further details which remind you of the mining era.
Coach: Dirk Schuster enjoyed a playing career at Magdeburg, Eintracht Braunschweig, Karlsruhe and Cologne. Born in Karl-Marx-Stadt, the coach won special plaudits for his work at Darmstadt: leading the side all the way from the third division to the top tier between 2013 and 2015. After joining Augsburg and another spell at the “Lilies”, Schuster took over as FCE coach in August from Daniel Meyer.
Head to head: SVWW and the “Violets” have met eight times with four Red & Black victories, two draws and two defeats. This season, Rüdiger Rehm’s side slipped to a 2-3 defeat on Matchday two. However, FCE have never managed to win a single game in Wiesbaden. SVWW have also kept a clean sheet in each of their four wins at home against Aue. Wehen Wiesbaden clinched a 2-0 victory in their most recent meeting in the DFB Cup first round in 2017/18.