As early as in February should the southern stand be ready in Essen, 6 months ahead of schedule. This is the good news. Bad news is that fans will most likely not be able to use it until next season anyway...

As we wrote in August, the new Stadion Essen was opened this summer with just three stands as the fourth one had to be built partly in place of the former venue and was thus commenced last.

With foundation works being done this summer, surprisingly the construction pace allowed for almost all of the prefab structure to be in place already. This means that the whole ground may be ready as early as in February 2013, though was initially planned for August 2013.

This would be extremely good news for Rot-Weiss Essen supporters, but isn't. Because it turns out the fast delivery of their 6,600-people terrace won't increase capacity until 2013/14 season. There are still access routes and parking spots to be built before it's opened and that means the stand itself has to be closed even after it's done.