Ottmar Hitzfeld. If you are football fan and old enough you know how that is. This is guy who got us all hooked up on Borussia Dortmund. My favorite team outside my country has to be Borussia and that started to happened in ’90, when the golden age of Borrusia has been formed. Do you remember names like: Karl-Heinz Riedle, Andreas Möller, Matthias Sammer, Júlio César, Michael Zorc, Jürgen Kohler, Stéphane Chapuisat ? Well those were the best Borrusia’s footballers form that time.
Now-days, still attractive team, still loved them. Fantastic stadium. Fantastic atmosphere during every match (pre-corona and after corona, we hope) as you can see yourself on the photo above.
TV experience watching Borrusia unfortunately was never great. Main TV broadcasting camera was and it is still, always, too low and Borrusia have been doing disservice with that for their popular club image all over the world.
Check out the grades and final FICAZ INDEX score bellow.
Camera Angle and Center Zoom
When you check Borrusia games footage from 1996-1997 season you can see that camera angle was almost the same as it is now (😲) expect then was even worse TV experience because TV broadcast standard for that time was mostly 4:3 SD Standard Definition. To be honest I would really watch Borrusia even more but it is not fun watching it too much zoomed when oversized players in one part of the pitch, without seeing the full perspective of the game. It kills most of the enjoyment and enthusiasms which was build up before the game when you see that stadium in mesmerizing Black and Yellow colors by Borussia’s loud and playful crowd on the stands.
Calculation:
Camera angle score for Borussia Dortmund – Westfalenstadion = 20 points
Center Zoom score for Borussia Dortmund – Westfalenstadion = 3 points
Zoom top (far side)
Our trigger happy “Mr. Will Bowman” is trying to much. It is obvious for any football fan that is not the way how we should watch football game and enjoy at the same time.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom FAR side for Borussia Dortmund – Westfalenstadion = 2 point
Zoom bottom (near side)
“Will” at least has been trying here, not zooming in 100%, Average result.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom NEAR side for Borussia Dortmund – Westfalenstadion = 4 points
Zoom Corners
This part of the game is the best scoring criteria for Westfalenstadion and “Mr. Bowman”. So now you know how bad it is. When you see bellow final score, you’ll know what I am talking about. Btw, I consider watching game bellow 50 points FICAZ score not enjoyable at all, deeming it at the unwatchable. For example Mestalla Stadium Valencia CF is on near edge of watchable TV football game on TV. If there is a match Valencia vs Barcelona OK, I’ll watch it, but against Osasuna, well 😏.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom CORNER for Borussia Dortmund – Westfalenstadion = 5 points
Extra points
SkyCam is used at Westfalenstadion but very rarely and not in LIVE TV broadcast. Still 0.5 points. For HREN bonus I gave it zero. I stayed neutral, even to be fair maybe -2 would be appropriate grade. Reason I stayed neutral is because of really good feeling about stadium on TV when it’s full of fans in contrary to TV broadcast of a football match from Signal Iduna Park.
Overall message to Borrusia Dortmund organization: Don’t be in the same incompetence basket as Bayern Munich. We are not in ’90 anymore. Put TV camera higher and let us enjoy in sprinting finishing goals by Erling Haaland and other BlackYellow footballers with enable camera angle.
Calculation:
Extra points (max. 16 points) = 0.5 points
Points summary
| Criteria | Points | Max. |
| Camera Angle | 20 | 50 |
| Zoom Center | 3 | 10 |
| Zoom Far – Top | 2 | 8 |
| Zoom Near – Bottom | 4 | 8 |
| Corner | 5 | 8 |
| Extra | 0.5 | 16 |
| FICAZ Index | 34.5 | 100 |
Borussia Dortmund – Westfalenstadion
FICAZ INDEX = 34.5
Tell us in the comments what you think. Thanks for taking the time to contribute. Let’s enjoy in every fracking football game around the planet like it is Barca game, every game.
Mario Hren
Links and contacts for this FICAZ Index:
Complain , complain, complain and then complain again.
Club website for contact: https://www.bvb.de/eng/Fans/Contact
Email complains:
