THE Yellow Wall, as the South Stand at the Westfalenstadion is known when it is packed with 25,000 of Borussia Dortmund’s ultra passionate fans, is hugely intimidating for any visiting team to play in front of.
Celtic will be doing well to block out the noise which will hit them when they take to the field ahead of their league phase match against last season’s beaten Champions League finalists in Germany next Tuesday night and then perform to their best.
AC Milan, Newcastle United, Paris Saint-Germain, PSV Eindhoven and Atletico Madrid all failed to record a victory in the world-renowned 81,365 capacity arena during the 2023/24 campaign.
Yet, the “Die Gelbe Wande” in the “Sudtribune” will hold no fears whatsoever for Arne Engels.
The new Celtic midfielder sampled the unique atmosphere of the Signal Iduna Park, as the stadium is known for sponsorship reasons, when he made his bow for Augsburg in the January of last year.
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His side may have lost that Bundesliga fixture 4-3, but he acquitted himself well during the course of the 90 minutes, helped to set up one of the visitors’ goals and thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.
Engels, who has highlighted why the Scottish champions were prepared to break their transfer record and pay £11m for him during the final hours of the summer transfer window last month in his outings to date, is looking forward to returning greatly and expects the surroundings to have a positive impact on his display.
“It was a hell of a game in Dortmund. Augsburg were already a long time in the Bundesliga. They were in the middle table or a bit below. So it's obvious that Dortmund was expected to win easily, but it wasn't like that. So it was a good game.
“It's going to be obviously a hard challenge there. It's like every game in the Champions League, it's at the highest level. They're all good teams, but we are also a good team. I think we don't need to be scared of anybody. We just need to play our own game and see how it goes.
“Hopefully I can help. There are also a lot of Belgian guys that are playing in all the clubs that we are playing against [his fellow national squad member Julien Duranville is at Dortmund]. It's also nice to see them again. It will be really nice to play against my old team [Club Brugge] and also to see everybody. We'll see how it goes.”
Engels, though, believes that playing at Parkhead with Celtic is every bit as intense as taking part in a match at the Westfalenstadion.
He made his debut for the Glasgow club when he came off the bench in their William Hill Premiership match against Rangers at the start of September just two days after arriving in the country and was amazed at the fervour of the supporters in the 59,612-strong crowd during the joyously-celebrated 3-0 triumph.
He also started and scored a second half penalty in the Champions League league phase opening triumph over Slovan Bratislava last week and revelled in the colour and cacophony of the occasion.
Engels is confident that playing in the East End every other week will prepare him and his new team mates for their away games against Dortmund, Atalanta, Dinamo Zagreb and Aston Villa in Europe’s elite club competition in the coming weeks and months.
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Asked about the prospect of going back to the Westfalenstadion, he said: “It's going to be the same here. It's the same noise, even louder sometimes. It's going to be really good and helpful for me.
“Here it's also intimidating. It's also nice to play here. Now you have the fans with you and not against you. That's also a different feeling and a really nice feeling.”
Engels adapted quickly to life at Augsburg after joining them from Club NXT, the Club Brugge reserve side, in a €100,000 move at the start of last year. He established himself as a regular first team starter, helped the Bavarian outfit beat Bayer Leverkusen and Union Berlin and survive in the German top flight.
He has made an encouraging start to life at Celtic as well and has rapidly endeared himself to supporters with his technique, work rate, physicality and football intelligence in the wins over Rangers, Hearts, Bratislava and Falkirk.
The young man who made his first appearance for Belgium in their Nations League match against Israel earlier this month is multilingual and has experienced no difficulties integrating into Brendan Rodgers’ squad.
Engels is focusing fully on the Premiership game against managerless St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Saturday and on helping Celtic record a victory which maintains their five point lead over Rangers in the table.
But the glamour Champions League encounter with Borussia Dortmund is very much in his thoughts as well.
He is certain the former European Cup winners won’t be intimidated by either the Westfalenstadion or The Yellow Wall and can build on their opening victory and boost their hopes of featuring in the knockout rounds for the first time since way back in 2013 with another positive result.
