Et was a week of great effects that shook Arminia Bielefeld, the Bundesliga relegated team who had dropped to 16th place in the second division, at the beginning and at the end.
First, the team delivered a roller coaster game last Sunday at newly promoted Eintracht Braunschweig, which initially delighted and ultimately horrified the fans and club officials who had traveled with them. 3:0 led and still well served with a 3:3: The shot drive towards the third division continued after a short high phase. Time to act to break the trend.
So on Monday, sports manager Samir Arabi, who after twelve mostly good years had mutated into a face of the crisis because of a series of bad decisions, was fired. The next day coach Daniel Scherning, who had replaced Italian Uli Forte, who had been fired after four defeats at the beginning of the season, also had to leave without being able to stabilize the team.
On Thursday, the East Westphalians then introduced Uwe Koschinat as the new coach – in the anxious hope that this time they had found the right person for a team that was looking for the lost class. The 51-year-old from the Rhineland had previously proved his worth with smaller clubs such as Fortuna Köln and SV Sandhausen with his gripping, rousing nature. CFO Christoph Wortmann announced that he was a man with the “full throttle gene” at the presentation of the courageous and, if in doubt, optimistic Koblenz resident.
He immediately promised to “rock” the Alm, a stronghold of German football on a good day – and kept his word. On Saturday, when SV Darmstadt 98 arrived as leaders in the second division, it initially looked as if the series of sometimes unfortunate defeats of DSC Arminia would continue. The Hessians made it 1-0 from their second chance through the fast-acting Austrian Mathias Honsak, who used his next opportunity to make it 1-0 after a shot at the post before the break (54th). Two minutes later, his Swiss colleague Filip Stojilkovic stormed towards the Bielefeld goal, but was unable to complete his solo because Bielefeld’s Manuel Prietl drove into his save.
What then followed was an intoxicating half hour in which Arminen, who had been brought up to speed by Koschinat, finally played out their potential. The captain, record player (408 appearances in a Bielefeld jersey) and record goalscorer Fabian Klos headed the ball perfectly in front of his colleague Prietl, so that his powerful header made it 1-1 (72′). In the big final, Prietl’s substitute Austrian compatriot Benjamin Kanuric hit the corner of the goal with a perfect outside instep dropkick (90′ + 1′). “I went crazy,” Koschinat described his elation when Kanuric had set the signs for victory.
Captain Klos, at the age of 35 on the final arc of his career, put the icing on the cake with his shot into the empty goal (90 + 4) on a week of the Bielefeld caesura, in which loud “Uwe, Uwe” calls were heard at the end unmistakably indicated that DSC Arminia seems to have found a new front man after a hitherto paralyzing season, who promptly brought his players, who had been despondent for weeks, up to speed.
Koschinat was then sensible enough to correctly classify the long-awaited success of the day: “That was a first step,” he emphasized, “we still have to give it a lot of full throttle.” Players and fans of this club, who will be on Saturday, said yes has rediscovered almost lost self-esteem.
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