KThe “lilies” have not appeared in sport for less than three weeks. The international break and the point game that was canceled due to corona cases at VfL Osnabrück totaled 18 days without play. The home game this Saturday (1 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the second Bundesliga and on Sky) against FC St. Pauli turns into a Darmstadt cold start.
Head coach Markus Anfang is not afraid of the match of his team, which has lost its usual rhythm. But the football teacher considers the first few minutes of the game to be a critical phase. “It will be a challenge to be there from the very first second,” said Anfang.
Recently they only really let off steam in internal competition. Last weekend, the Darmstadt team set up an intense eleven-on-eleven game over four times 25 minutes to simulate the missing competition. One party should always specifically imitate St. Pauli with its basic order. But the “lilies” have also shown in the first three league games of the season – a defeat, a draw, a win – that they can act flexibly. It was particularly evident during their last work trial for the time being that they are ready to play against a well-known opponent away from home to win. The late hit to the 3-2 win at 1. FC Nürnberg was the reward. On this basis, a training phase that gave Coach an unusually large amount of time at the beginning to grind down his game idea doesn’t have to be wrong. The native of Cologne describes his team as “very far” with regard to the adaptation of the approach based on ball possession and playful dominance. With an average of 65 percent ball possession, the Südhessen lead the league-wide category.
No stadium visitors will be able to see for themselves whether this will also work against St. Pauli. The high number of infections in Darmstadt also gave the “Lilien” their first ghost game of the season – and the first ever in the coaching career from the start, who was worried about the deployment of his midfielder Victor Palsson. Palsson brought with him a knee injury from the most recent outings for Iceland.
.
