Alemannia could finish this season with the absolute maximum in terms of sport and actually become double winners. In the championship, the black and yellow are eight points ahead of their pursuers Bocholt with eight game days to go, and also have a goal difference that is ten goals better. And: Bocholt still has to compete at the Tivoli. And Heiner Backhaus’s team is a force. After many years, the New Tivoli has finally become the fortress that was once hoped for when it was built.
And in the FVM Cup? The semi-finals were on Friday evening. After the Aachen team had already eliminated Viktoria Köln, their top-ranked opponent, in the quarter-finals (2-0), as leaders in the regional league they were of course favorites here too. So turn on the floodlights and head into match day!
The neighbor from Düren was a guest. Alemannia Aachen and 1. FC Düren against each other in the cup semi-finals? Didn’t that happen before? In 2019, exactly this game took place at the venerable Westkampfbahn. The Kaiserstadt team won, made it to the final and won the pot, thereby securing their place in the first round of the DFB Cup. In 2020, the two teams only met in the final of the cup, this time with the better end for Düren (0-1 from Aachen’s perspective). Statistically speaking, it was Alemannia’s turn again, right?
And why “just” settle for taking part in the DFB Cup. To be able to get involved there again means fighting for Europe. That’s what it looks like!
And where the word “Middle Rhine Cup record setting” is mentioned in this tweet: 25,500 spectators made a pilgrimage to the Soers on Friday evening. Incomprehensible! Just for comparison, also because the number is important for everyone who is against Alemannia: The final will take place at the Sportpark Höhenberg. That only holds 8,343 people…
But first Düren had to be shown who was the boss in the ring. After all, Düren was the highest remaining rival in the league, as two Middle Rhine league teams, Bonner SC and Königsdorf, met in the other semi-final. Bonn reached the final with a 4-0 win. From Alemannia’s point of view, it’s a good thing that the game isn’t played in the Sportpark Nord in Bonn, because in Bonn against Bonn? In recent years, things haven’t looked so good from the black and yellow perspective. But why look back when the future can be even more beautiful. So keep your head up, chest out and beat Düren like a front runner!
Aachen’s coach Backhaus called the following eleven onto the field:
Compared to the game last week against 1. FC Köln’s second team, only the recovered Uliiiiiii Bapoh was brought back into the starting line-up for Dustin Wilms, otherwise there were no changes. But Bapoh, of all people, who certainly has one of the finest feet and the greatest ball feel in the Regionalliga West, had a hard time getting into the game. A lot of ball losses and exclusive passing ideas that his teammates didn’t know about made his game seem very erratic. But his colleagues didn’t achieve much in terms of building up the game either. There was simply a lack of access and the second balls were not fetched. The most noticeable and by far the strongest on the Aachen side in the first 60 minutes were Jan-Luca Rumpf and the captain Mika Hanraths, who lives the Aachen virtues like no other, throws himself into everything, wins every duel, runs all the balls, in the Air is present, organizes his teammates and never retreats even a hint of a millimeter. He had to be briefly treated on the sidelines again in this game. Then he comes back to the lawn and just keeps going: machine!
Düren, on the other hand, had more of the game in the first hour. Only Alemannia’s will, commitment and morale prevented a possible deficit. And of course the over 25,000 fans who cheered on their team non-stop. This symbiosis is simply amazing!
Backhaus changed his team for the second half, Bapoh had to go down, Wilms came back and with him a new tactical approach, because the first half, as Aachen’s trainer said after the game, “was on me”. From the 60th minute onwards, Alemannia gained more control of the game and the game became more balanced. But there were still no goals.
And so it went into extra time. But in the end it is nothing other than a very long injury time and the kings of extra time are simply the black and yellow. It wasn’t even a minute after the restart when substitute Thilo Töpken showed why Backhaus brought him to the Tivoli in the winter: he claimed the ball, which finally went to Anton Heinz, who up until then had had little luck shooting, and The home team was already in the lead. Less than five minutes later, Töpken made it 2-0 himself. Double strike in five minutes, that looked good. Düren forced an own goal from “Machine” Hanraths, but Aachen should have exploited a few counterattack opportunities better as a result. In the end it was a 2-1 win!
This means that Alemannia is in the final of the Middle Rhine Cup for the ninth time after 1993, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2013, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (not counting the second team). They will face Bonner SC in Cologne in May.
But first we celebrated with the team, who were exhausted in the end. No wonder when there is a final almost every week, the opponent is particularly motivated in this game and then it rains completely and the pitch gets deeper and deeper (of course “rain showers over the Tivoli…” also applies). But as always: commitment, morale and will win for the Alemannia Games. Added to this is individual class, the coach’s speech and tens of thousands of positively crazy people on the sidelines!
So the plan now is: bag the promotion and then via Cologne to Berlin!
Why? Therefore!
If you want to personally give the team a little love back for the great season so far: the team and the coach will be at the Elisengarten on Saturday, March 23rd, from 12:30 p.m. for an autograph session.
Signatures from future newcomers are always nice!
I’m already looking forward to Easter Saturday, because Fortuna from Cologne is coming to the pick-packed Tivoli: the Netzschau.
You can read the detailed match report on the game at:
Also read:
Alemannia moves into the FVM Cup final
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2024-03-23 10:30:00
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