The Euro 2024 last-16 tie between Germany and Denmark was suspended amid extraordinary conditions after a lightning storm erupted in Dortmund.
Michael Oliver, the English referee, halted proceedings in the 35th minute with the score goalless after ear-splitting claps of thunder, flashes of fork lightning and torrential rain passed over BVB Stadion. After initially taking the players to the side of the pitch, he told them a short while later to return to their dressing rooms.
The game restarted after a break of about 25 minutes, the weather having calmed and the players having done a second short warm-up on the pitch.
The weather at kick-off had been grey, close and intensely humid, a storm of some kind always appearing likely at some stage. As sheets of rain began blowing into the stands a large section of the stadium’s south end, occupied bv famous “yellow wall” at Borussia Dortmund matches, emptied out as fans sought shelter in the concourses.
But many stayed and braved the conditions, singing and holding up the black, yellow and red placards that had formed a display of the German flag before kick-off. Staff worked to clear up residual water beneath the roof of the ground’s east side, where water was cascading in columns at each end.
Within about 15 minutes conditions had eased. Screens around the stadium advised fans that the match had been halted due to “adverse weather conditions”.
The Denmark manager, Kasper Hjulmand, was the head coach at Nordsjælland in 2009 when one of the club’s players, Jonathan Richter, was hit by lightning in a reserve game. Richter was placed in an induced coma and had the lower part of his left leg amputated some weeks later.
Police in Dortmund said two big-screen viewing parties in local fan zones were cancelled because of the weather. “Please leave these locations,” police wrote on X.
A group match between France and Ukraine at Euro 2012 in Donetsk was delayed for almost an hour because thunderstorms.