Jan Siewert is the third coach that SpVgg Greuther Fürth has put on the sidelines this season. Things are not going well for the once strong home team from Franconia, who now suffered their fourth home defeat in their seventh game in the unfortunate 3-2 defeat against Karlsruhe, including the worst possible one: one against 1. FC Nürnberg. A look at the table shows a team that has 13 points after 13 games. Objectively, things are only slightly better than the subjective mood in the traditionally not always euphoric cloverleaf environment: parts of the appendix seem to consider relegation at the end of the season to be a foregone conclusion.
On Saturday, at Siewert’s debut, there was no reason to be pessimistic apart from the result. Fürth played confidently and focused against a Karlsruhe team that played a first half that their own coach Christian Eichner rightly described as “terrible football”. Philipp Müller, who is only 20 years old, also showed a remarkably strong, intelligent game in the midfield center. The collective saw a clear system, a clear basic attitude according to clear guidelines. Instead of attacking early in front of the opponent’s goal, as KSC had expected, Fürth moved the pressing line backwards, but then did it all the more consistently.
By the time the guests realized this, they were 0-1 behind thanks to a goal from Branimir Hrgota (20th) and had to listen to some not-so-kind words from Eichner. However, there were many grateful faces around the Fürth Arena. The biggest defeatists, who had now assumed the worst against KSC after the helpless previous home game against Darmstadt (1:5), were surprised: their cloverleaf had proven to be capable of learning, and the new coach was someone worth following could.
But what initially followed was sobering from Fürth’s perspective. A few seconds after the restart, Budu Zivzivadze equalized 1-1, and shortly afterwards Bambasé Conté made it 1-2. Two goals that had more to do with the individual strengths of individual guest players than with their own mistakes. When, about an hour later, the new coach Siewert emphasized that they had ultimately been “beaten by the efficiency that defines a top team,” he omitted two things. Firstly, that the KSC, as the new runners-up in the table, did not play like a top team. And secondly, that’s exactly why Fürth probably wouldn’t have lost if their own keeper Manuel Noll hadn’t had the unfortunate idea of playing a risky short pass despite three opposing opponents. It ended up with a Karlsruhe player and the score was 1:3 (79th, Fabian Schleusener). There was now no time for anything more than the 2-3 goal by Sacha Bansé (83′).
“We could have fallen apart after 1:3. “Then something completely different would have happened here,” said Siewert
But that didn’t change the overall positive impression much: “The team played a good game,” said offensive man Roberto Massimo, who praised the coach so kindly that he later passed it back to the team: “He brings a lot of fire and energy “We feel that in the dressing room too.” And apparently also in the stands: after the extremely decent performance, there were no whistles in the stadium, the manageable number of Ultras instinctively applauded.
Whether one should take all of this as evidence that “Middle Franconia sticks together,” as Siewert, who was born in the Central Volcanic Eifel, emphasized, remains to be seen. But what could the man say that was uplifting after even his colleague from Karlsruhe had strongly criticized his own team and praised the Fürth opponent and his “attitude” very eloquently. “That hurts, I have to say,” Siewert replied and explained again what exactly had impressed him about the previous 90 minutes. “The attitude that you can beat anyone in the league was evident in every minute.” And: “We could have fallen apart after 3-1. Then something completely different would have happened here.”
A 1:5 defeat like the recent one against Darmstadt, for example. The cloverleaf was actually so far away from such a thing on Saturday that a real lucky experience next Sunday in Ulm seems conceivable.
#SpVgg #Greuther #Fürth #KSC #Lost #attitude
