Speyer / Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region – Leipzig – At the end of the season, the men of the JSW in the 1st Judo Bundesliga on Saturday evening against JC Leipzig. This is level on points with leader Abensberg in second place in the table and, after a surprising slip in the form of a defeat against JC Rüsselsheim on the second day of fighting, has won all fights, including against the other two top three teams, Abensberg and Esslingen.
While the Speyerers can go into the fight without any pressure – the chances that something will change in their fourth place in the table are slim – for Leipzig in the long-distance duel with Abensberg it is about places one and two and thus the question of whether they meet the first or second from the 1st Bundesliga North in the semi-finals of the championship round.
“It’s a real cracker at the end against the team that has beaten the other top teams and deserves to be a finalist,” says JSV team boss Michael Görgen-Sprau, who also reminds that the duels between Speyer and Leipzig in the last years have always been exciting and hard-fought. “Even though Leipzig was always the favorite, as it is now, we only narrowly lost the last duel, before that there was a draw and once we even had a narrow win in Leipzig.”
For Speyer, the accompanying circumstances in the form of the fight for first place are irrelevant – they want to offer everything in each individual fight and, in front of the hopefully numerous audience in Judomaxx, ensure a positive end to a season in which they have been at the top for a long time, and were able to get back on the road to success after an interim streak of bad luck last week. That would also be important as a signal for the coming season to show that the gap between the JSV and the top teams is getting smaller.
In terms of personnel, it looks quite good on the Speyer side – apart from the well-known long-term injuries. Everyone who was part of the home win against Backnang last weekend is available again, and the Speyer team are also hoping for the return of David Riedl, who was missing on the last day of the match.
PHOTO: Archival picture Judo men des JSV Speyer
