Borussia Dortmund's Yellow Wall has been regarded as one of the best and most fearsome stands in European football since it was expanded in the late 1990s.
It has a capacity of 25,000 and is the largest single-tiered grandstand in the whole of Europe.
It isn't the sheer size of the stand that has made it famous, however, but rather the fans who stand within it each and every week. It is where Dortmund's most passionate fans reside and the atmosphere they create on a weekly basis is a joy to behold.
Fans from across Europe were exposed to the beauty of Borussia Dortmund's Yellow Wall when the German side faced PSG in the Champions League semi-finals first leg in 2024. The home side were brilliant on the night and will feel they should have won by more than 1-0 but in the end, they did enough to make it through to the final.
One factor that PSG struggled to deal with on the night was the atmosphere inside Signal Iduna Park. The Yellow Wall were at their brilliant best from the first minute with all 25,000 fans inside the stand seemingly wearing yellow in unison. Flags were waved, songs were sung and they more than helped Dortmund get over the line on the night.
The Yellow Wall belts out You'll Never Walk Alone. One of those special European nights. ✨pic.twitter.com/YYRFEuP3Be
— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) May 1, 2024
The Yellow Wall: A History
Ever since Signal Iduna Park was built in 1971, the South Stand has been used by the most vocal of Borussia Dortmund's supporters but it wasn't until much more recently that it has been affectionately know as the ‘Yellow Wall'.
For starters, the stand wasn't nearly as impressive as it currently is until the late 1990s when renovation work saw the capacity and size of the stand double. It went from being able to hold 12,000 supporters to over 25,000 which made it a much more imperious stand overnight.
Then, at the end of the 2004/05 season, the club's supporters made their first reference to a ‘Yellow Wall' by unfurling a banner during the club's final home match of the season. The season was a turbulent one for the club and there was a genuine risk that financial problems could have seen them go under.
However, after the club survived, the fans put on a show of defiance in the South Stand. The banner in question read ‘At the end of the dark alley shines the yellow wall' and from there, the stand got its name.
Why do football tourists flock to see Borussia Dortmund's Yellow Wall?
Cheap beer, cheap tickets, and an incredible atmosphere. What's not to like?
Fans from other countries flock to see the love and passion that Dortmund fans have for their club. When Dortmund made it to the Champions League final in 2013, the club received 502,567 applications for 24,042 tickets. That goes some way to explaining just how demand for tickets vastly outstrips supply in this city.
When Jürgen Klopp transformed Dortmund into genuine challengers of the all-dominant Bayern Munich, Bastian Schweinsteiger was asked whether he feared the opposition players or manager more. The answer was neither. “It is the Yellow Wall that scares me the most,” he replied.
“It's always nice when English fans tell me that including the cost of a flight, two beers and a ticket, they do not pay more than a match in England,” marketing director Carsten Cramer told the BBC back in 2014.
“Why are tickets cheap? Football is part of people's lives and we want to open the doors for all of society. We need the people, they spend their hearts, their emotions with us. They are the club's most important asset.”