Sports Second League
Kruse experiences crashing bankruptcy on his comeback after a ten-month break
Status: 30.07.2023 | Reading time: 3 minutes
His commitment was a coup during the summer break: Max Kruse strengthened the ambitious second division club SC Paderborn. At the start, however, Kruse and Co. have to accept defeat.
Max Kruse experienced his last assignment in German professional football in September 2022. The Wolfsburg coach Niko Kovac sorted out the former national player at the time, two months later the club and the striker dissolved the contract.
Since then, Max Kruse has been doomed to inactivity – until Sunday afternoon, when he was allowed to celebrate his comeback. However, that went terribly wrong: With his new club, SC Paderborn, Kruse went down 0:5 (0:3) in Fürth at the start of the season and is now last in the lower house of German football.
In addition to the bankruptcy, Paderborn will also have to cope with Visar Musliu’s failure in the coming games. The professional left the pitch after a serious foul in the 8th minute. Then Branimir Hrgota (35th/45th) and Tim Lemperle (43rd) provided an early Franconian football festival in front of 10,547 spectators. Armindo Sieb (65th) and Joker Damian Michalski (77th) followed suit. After the first day of play, Fürth is the leader of the table.
The hosts determined the game after the early dismissal and pushed Paderborn deep into their half. The work of the guests was limited to defending, Kruse was hardly to be seen on the offensive. With one man less, Paderborn couldn’t close all the gaps fast enough. Julian Green and Sieb gratefully accepted the gifts and served double packers Hrgota and Lemperle with worth seeing passes.
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Paderborn’s coach Lukas Kwasniok ended Kruse’s debut at the break and brought in another defensive player. However, the change did not have the desired effect. Fürth continued to play happily forward and didn’t want to settle for 3-0. Hrgota (54th) failed with his next offensive action, but Sieb and Michalski were rewarded for their strong performance.
Hansa Rostock – 1. FC Nuremberg 2: 0 (1: 0)
Hansa Rostock started the new season with a sense of achievement and coach Cristian Fiél from 1. FC Nürnberg spoiled the competitive debut. The Baltic Sea club won 2-0 (1-0) on Sunday against the Franks, who had promoted the 43-year-old Fiél from the coach of the second team to the head coach of the professionals in the summer. Winger John-Patrick Strauss (42nd minute) gave Rostock the lead. Nils Fröling (47th), who was only substituted on at the beginning of the second half, raised for Hansa shortly afterwards.
The home team and the 25,300 spectators initially had to watch as the Franconians came up with the more promising chances. Then Rostock got better, defended in a disciplined manner and repeatedly came up with relieving attacks. Referee Florian Heft took back a guest goal from Daichi Hayashi (68th) after a previous handball.
Last season, on the penultimate matchday, Hansa made it perfect for remaining in the league with a 0-0 draw in Nuremberg. All in all, coach Alois Schwartz had stabilized the club at the time: Hansa won five of the last six league games of the season and got the liberating draw in Franconia.
Eintracht Braunschweig – Holstein Kiel 0: 1 (0: 0)
Holmbert Fridjonsson secured a good start to the new season for Holstein Kiel. The 30-year-old scored the 1-0 (0-0) win at Eintracht Braunschweig in added time on Sunday (90+2). After the yellow-red card for Hasan Kurucay (51st), the hosts played a good 40 minutes outnumbered.
Eintracht started courageously in front of 20,002 spectators. An alleged goal by Fabio Kaufmann was conceded because of his offside position (3rd). Kiel slowly worked their way into the game, and a free kick from Ba-Muaka Simakala was cleared by Braunschweig goalkeeper Ron Thorben Hoffmann for a corner (23′). At the other end, Anthony Ujah failed three times with a header (24th, 28th, 45th + 3).
Kiel came out of the break well, new signing Shuto Machino put the ball over the goal after a long pass from Tom Rothe (48′). Then Kurucay was late again in a tackle with Simakala and was sent off. Fridjonsson headed in just before the end.
