A look at the statistics gives a good impression of the situation in which the owners Angels Nördlingen currently find themselves: after five wins and nine defeats, they are in a shaky eighth place with ten points, closely followed by Wings Leverkusen, who have the same number of points. Eighth place at least includes a playoff ticket – one of the stated goals of the owner Angels in the women’s basketball league. The basket difference of -184 points is also the worst in the league.
Coach Niko Kuusi’s team suffered six defeats in a row in the first half of the season – none of which were exactly close. Martin Fürleger, who manages the club’s sporting fortunes, is a little more direct: “We’ve really been hit in the face a few times.” Overall, he’s not dissatisfied with the season so far, but it has also been “difficult.” : “Failures, injuries and the departure of a player, these are all points that don’t necessarily help a team that is already struggling.”
Until now. Because on Wednesday evening the Nördlingers achieved a medium-sized sensation. In the cup quarter-finals they defeated the current cup winners and fifth-placed TK Hannover with 89:69 – and thus qualified for the final tournament in March. Above all, a new player is giving the owner Angels a boost: Canadian Nicole Fransson recently played for the Slovakian club Young Angels Kosice – and without exception scored double-digit points there. In the first three games with Nördlingen she recorded an average of 24 points and 15 rebounds, in the cup game against Hannover she had 41 points and twelve rebounds, as well as six sunk three-pointers from seven attempts. It is a personal record for the 24-year-old, whose career also includes stints in Australia and Luxembourg.
Fransson scored 41 points in the cup and hit six of seven three-pointers
It was all “very exciting,” says Fransson on the phone – the short-term contract, the medieval city, her entry into the team. “I always wanted to play in Germany because I find the competition in the Bundesliga exciting. The team is great and I think we have a lot of potential.”
However, Fransson hardly had any time to take a closer look at her new team in advance. The fact that the 1.87 meter tall forward player joined the owner Angels is primarily due to a happy coincidence. Armed with only a temporary residence permit (which, according to Fransson, was due to a technicality and a Canadian Postal strike), the forward was supposed to have left Europe for home in December. Her flight back to Canada had already been booked, but the desire to play basketball in Europe still existed. In search of a solution, her agent also called Nördlingen – and reached a sports management team there that was desperately looking for a player with Fransson’s profile.
“We then set everything in motion to get a residence and playing permit for Nicole,” says Martin Fürleger: “It was one of the fastest contract processing in Angels history.” Less than two days after the first telephone contact, Fransson got out on the plane – but not to Edmonton, Canada, but to Munich.
The next duel is on Sunday (4 p.m.). Again against Hannover, again in front of a home crowd, but this time in the league. Fürleger warns that the game won’t be a walk in the park. Fransson is optimistic: “We didn’t show everything we can do on Wednesday. We still have a few options up our sleeves.”
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