Rose speaks on anti East German chants: “They should come visit us.”

During his post-match presser, RB Leipzig trainer Marco Rose commented on anti East German chants directed at his team during last night’s 5-1 win over Köln at the RheinEnergieStadion. 

Anti-RB Leipzig banners and protest action are commonplace whenever Germany’s Saxon club travels to other stadiums for away Bundesliga fixtures. Matters nevertheless got uglier than normal in Germany’s cathedral city last night. Frustrated by their side’s lopsided loss to Marco Rose’s German Red bulls, 1. FC Köln supporters could be heard shouting “We hate East Germans” from the rows of the RheinEnergieStadion. 

At his post-match presser afterwards, Marco Rose (a Leipzig native who was thirteen years old when the wall fell) downplayed the chants. Rose noted that the scoreline brought out emotions in the fans that were a normal enough part of football. The RB trainer cautioned members of the assembled media about reading too much into it. 

“When it’s 1-4, 1-5 we’ve all been in football stadiums that feature different sorts of people in the stands,” Rose said, “Of course, I don’t find it good. I’ll still emphasize that it’s not my role to further divide us. People who don’t know us [East Germans] should come visit us. There’s lots of cool people there, just like here. There’s also idiots, just like here.” 

“In the final analysis, everything’s very similar,” he concluded, “And I think that’s the reason why we tore down [the iron curtain] both literally and in our heads. Again, don’t read too much into it. There’s plenty of people in here and out there who have the right attitude. We should highlight them. They can also correct others as we move forward.”

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