After the final whistle, Raphael Holzhauser stood next to Tim Rieder, a midfielder who had joined third division club 1860 Munich a few days ago and one who has been playing for the Löwen since the summer. Holzhauser pulled his jersey over his mouth, Rieder held out a hand, so you can assume that they had clear words to say to each other. Judging by their facial expressions, the dialogue could have sounded something like this: “Were we always that bad in the last few games?” asks Holzhauser. Rieder: “Yes.” Maybe with the addition: “Otherwise we wouldn’t have had to get you.”
Now the 29-year-old Holzhauser made his debut in 1860, three days after the start of the loan deal from the Belgian first division club OH Leuven, and it was obvious that he could help an uncertain team. But despite a few good moments from the veteran, the sixties seamlessly continued their poor performance before the winter break, they lost 1:3 (1:1) at SV Waldhof Mannheim, despite being in the lead. The team stagnates in sixth place.
Words spoken directly into a microphone on Saturday afternoon were far from clear. Sixty coach Michael Köllner said his team’s game was much nicer than it was, including the following sentence: “We had two or three huge opportunities – to play the last pass.” Otherwise there were only two or three ways to see.
While Raphael Holzhauser then mentioned to Magentasport that the team at the fence had also received encouragement from their fans, clear calls of “Köllner raus” could be heard during the game. In addition, in the 74th minute, some supporters – more than 3,000 had traveled to the Kurpfalz – already held up a banner that addressed the behavior of the coach in the past few weeks: “Wild buzz and Qatar put into perspective – ‘footballers play football’ and train coaches”.
The initial phase looked quite good from a lion’s point of view
Köllner had attended the World Cup in Qatar and there, as before, expressed the opinion that footballers should not be drawn into political issues; some fans now seem to accuse him of not having done his core business properly. Last Tuesday, at the very end of the training camp in Turkey, Köllner drew attention to himself again with stinks when he publicly complained about how long the Holzhauser transfer was taking. Before the game in Mannheim, however, he said with a smile: “A bit of ignition doesn’t hurt.”
The coach had to do without captain Stefan Lex, who was ill, and the first few minutes after the two-month break looked pretty good from a sixties point of view. The game started a few minutes later due to fireworks and dark blue smoke pots in the Mannheim curve. Raphael Holzhauser accepted the delay chewing gum, otherwise the lions seemed cool and alert at first. After seven minutes, a cross from Rieder that was actually much too steep reached the Mannheim penalty area, where Phillipp Steinhart headed the ball surprisingly freely – and took the first opportunity of the game. However, it should also remain the best. His opponent Adrien Lebeau had acted quite stupidly in this situation, but later turned out to be one of the best players on the pitch.
Even the draw at the break was rather lucky for 1860
In the first quarter of an hour, the sixties held out against Mannheim, who often combined well, with a lot of duel toughness. And Holzhauser unpacked a masterful tackle against the onrushing Lebeau in front of his own penalty area after almost a quarter of an hour, which immediately radiated boss attitude. Later, the Austrian, who had already played for FC Augsburg in the Bundesliga, was tunnelled twice within a few seconds.
“I saw in training: the quality is there,” Holzhauser reported to Magentasport. In the game he had therefore rather not seen them. Mannheim created numerous chances before the break, but the hosts were able to equalize after an unsuccessful liberation by sixty goalkeeper Marco Hiller. The ball came back into the penalty area with a well-considered, quick switch game, as Köllner actually demands from his own team, Mannheim’s Pascal Sohm tunnelled Leandro Morgalla, the ball landed in the far corner (39th). Later even Köllner had to admit that the 1-1 at the break was a rather happy intermediate result.
1860 does not appear as a candidate for promotion
After a clever counter-attack, Sohm scored again to make it 2-1 (57th). The game had turned, but that didn’t change anything about the behavior of the sixties: there was no rebellion, and several substitutions, such as ex-Mannheimer Joseph Boyamba, hardly enlivened the offensive game. However, one of his few crosses landed on the head of Martin Kobylanski, who was surprisingly allowed to play in midfield with Holzhauser, but the 28-year-old headed wide of the goal (83′). The final decision was made just before the final whistle: as before the 2-1 win, the sixties lost the ball immediately after their own throw-in, Dominik Kother scored to make it 3-1 (90+5).
Holzhauser then said: “For me it’s about building the team”, the club now belongs in the second division. But he seems to have already realized how much work he has put on himself. In any case, the sixties haven’t played like a candidate for promotion for a long time, and they were far from it at the start of 2023.
