The good man was spared nothing. Marcel Rapp had already done a crazy amount of running on that memorable Saturday lunchtime, repeatedly trying to use gestures to guide his sometimes disoriented players into the right direction. And now also this: In the second minute of stoppage time, the Kiel coach had to run to the corner flag himself, from where he threw the ball to Freiburg’s demonstratively leisurely keeper Noah Atubolo for further processing. Time was of the essence because shortly before, Kiel’s Phil Harres (85th/90th) had turned a hopeless 0-3 deficit into 2-3. And when the untrained ball boy Rapp later stated at the press conference that “perhaps only a few minutes” were needed to turn this one-sided game around, he was right.
Because SC Freiburg almost gave up a supposedly certain victory in the last minutes of the game. Like in the 3-2 home game against Wolfsburg, when Freiburg almost blew a 3-0 lead. It wasn’t just Atubolo, who made two good saves and saved against Fiete Arp in the very last second, but at least had the 2:3 on his conscience, who thought after the game that “something like that shouldn’t happen.”
Meanwhile, Kiel’s Timo Becker had déjà vu after the game with significantly more repeats. Actually, he and his colleagues had started quite well, and yet they were already 0-2 behind at halftime. Because Nicolai Remberg deflected a cross from Eren Dinkci into his own goal (23rd) and Freiburg’s original left-back Christian Günter converted a free kick quite spectacularly (38th). “And then you’re standing at an away game again and you think, what’s going on here?” said Kiel’s brave defender.
Ultimately, as unfortunate as the game was, “it doesn’t matter,” said Becker. Because the next game will be another one in which the surprise climber has to roll a very heavy stone up a very high mountain. And because it’s against Borussia Dortmund. And this constellation is a very special matter for Becker, who loves Schalke and who, like Manuel Neuer, grew up in Gelsenkirchen-Buer as a footballer, is a very special matter, i.e. a “personal derby”.
If the Dortmund team finds this somewhat dutiful declaration of war frightening, it probably has more to do with the sickness and the countless other problems in their own camp than with the Kiel team’s performance. The last ten minutes of the game spoke for them on Saturday – and the stubbornness of forcing a comeback despite the previous 80 minutes. That’s why people don’t like to say it, but compared to similarly limited Bochum residents, who are at least helped by lighters, or Heidenheim residents, who seem to have strengthened well in the winter, the Holsteiners don’t have an outstanding hand in hand.
Although: In terms of level, both teams were at times closer to each other on Saturday than the result suggests. In addition to the wild final phase, Freiburg suffered three bad ball losses in their own half in the first quarter of an hour, each of which led to Kiel’s chances. In between there was a lot of ball possession, a lot of control of the game, a lot of things that coach Julian Schuster praised as learning success (“things we wanted to see”). However, the attack efforts were not particularly inspired.
Freiburg’s often artificial understatement is simply a realistic basis for work
If the game had been whistled after 85 minutes when the score was 3-0, one would have spoken of a somewhat slow, rather less entertaining afternoon. At least the final phase woke up the audience, who had spent the afternoon unusually quiet up until then.
However, the Freiburg team could only be accused of their low entertainment factor if someone in southern Baden came up with the idea of making big noises. But the post-prank Freiburgers are far from that. Even if Schuster emphasizes in good old humility before every game and with every opponent that you have to be “maximally warned”, that may seem flirtatious. But that’s only on the sidelines. Above all, they have always known in Freiburg that you only fall deeply if someone has put you on a pedestal beforehand. The understatement, which often seems artificial outside of Freiburg, is simply a realistic basis for work. Freiburg’s turnover has as much to do with that of Holstein Kiel as that of RB Leipzig has to do with that of VfL Bochum. But you can’t keep up with the key figures of Dortmund, Wolfsburg or Gladbach, all of which are behind the sports club in the table. In this respect, SC midfielder Maximilian Eggestein summed up the working day in a minimalist and accurate way: “It was a successful start to the new year because we won.”
#Kiels #race #catch #Freiburg #humility #wild #mistakes
