Too tired for the climb (neue-deutschland.de)

After the somewhat sobering defeat in Ingolstadt in the first relegation game, coach Tomas Oral was realistic. ‘We have to shake. So that we can fight back again – if that is possible. «

After the impressions of the first leg, however, there can be doubts about the fact that the third division team will still make it to the next Saturday. Nuremberg drove like a hawk through the dovecote on Ingolstadt’s defensive. The guests, who seemed mentally and physically tired, could be happy in the end that they were not completely under control. Without the injured Stefan Kutschke and Maximilian Beister, who had to be replaced early, nothing went on the offensive. A 0: 5 would have reflected the course of the game rather than 0: 2.

Since its founding in 2004, the FCI has mostly commuted between the third and second leagues, from 2015 to 2017 they even played in the 1st Bundesliga, where in the first season under the current Southampton coach Ralph Hasenhüttl, eleventh place jumped out. The club was never able to shed its image of being a bloodless artifact. The fan base is still manageable, although the geographical niche of Nuremberg, Fürth, FC Augsburg, 1860 Munich and FC Bayern also does not allow major leaps.

In terms of football history, the club, despite the support from »Audi«, can only be compared to a limited extent with the newcomers RB Leipzig or TSG Hoffenheim, who are badly belated by traditional fans. Because the origin clubs ESV and MTV Ingolstadt had existed since the beginning of the 20th century, at the end of the seventies the proletarian railroaders and the more middle-class MTV even played both in the second division at the same time.

The Schanzern now have four full days to regenerate before they meet Nuremberg again in their own stadium. It is questionable whether there is enough time to get a team back on track, which, in contrast to the second division club FCN, has only completed English weeks since the restart and seemed completely outplayed. Oral is honored that he did not take the objectively unfair starting position into the field: “We do not complain about the lack of freshness, we have never done that before.” But of course the coach had also seen that his team could not hold a candle to an opponent , who now apparently has his own coach, whose measures are taking effect. Ex-professional Michael Wiesinger, who coached the club in the Bundesliga in 2013, had previously worked in Ingolstadt for two years and heads the Franconian Youth Performance Center this year, has achieved a lot in the past week. The tactical requirements, such as the almost explosive start-up of Ingolstadt in the initial phase, took effect just as much as the personnel measures. So he pulled Fabian Nürnberger, who is really called that and scored both goals (22/45), from the midfield to the front left: “He is a classic outside player for me, probably because I was one of those.”

In fact, Wiesinger was quite dangerous as a player: 25 goals in 186 games for Nürnbrg. On the other hand, his character is far less offensive, a fact that Oral wanted to use as a motivation attempt in his own interests before the game. “Much of what the Nuremberg residents say is not their nature,” says Oral. The attempts to motivate Wiesinger’s coaching team seemed fake, you had to interpret that. “Our trainer is authentic, Herr Oral,” said Thomas Grethlein, head of the supervisory board in Nuremberg, when the game was interrupted from the stands. Oral acted as if he hadn’t heard it.

Oral and his colleague have since spoken out. And yet Oral’s words had obviously hit Wiesinger. As if to justify it, he said that “sometimes in life you have to try to be emotional yourself, to march ahead. And I tried. «With his frugal facial expressions and his quiet voice, Wiesinger is actually the opposite of Oral, who is training the FCI for the third time. And quite successfully. In 2011 he took over a bottom of the table in the 2nd Bundesliga and saved him in the last game of the season. In 2019 he took five wins in seven games, but was unable to prevent relegation against Wehen-Wiesbaden. Now Oral, who has led Upper Bavaria from fifth to relegation rank four in his third engagement since March, has the chance to show that he can not only motivate in the short term; this time his contract runs until 2021.

So far, however, he has never completely dispelled the suspicion that he is secretly emulating Felix Magath when it comes to team leadership, under which he worked as a assistant coach at Fulham FC in 2014. Tantrums and unfortunate statements like that about Wiesinger are said to have occurred at all previous stations. But also that he is responsible for a very good professional training.

Is that enough to create the big surprise on Saturday? On Tuesday, it looked as if the team needed a lot of time to relax instead of intensive training.