Team recovered after debacle

How many blows and blows can a professional team withstand? How long can it stay fighting and competitive if it almost never receives the full reward (in the form of a victory) for all its efforts? These questions have been with the “lilies” for a while.

And until last week, one could justifiably claim: Darmstadt 98 has the necessary resilience and resilience to repeatedly defend itself against the seemingly inevitable, direct relegation. Then FC Augsburg came to the Böllenfalltor and with the crushing 6-0 defeat including the first signs of dissolution, the question was: Can the team and coaching team recover from this horror day when they desperately wanted their first success since October and then went down without a sound?

“Big shit we built”

Has it become embedded in the minds of professionals that there is a certain futility inherent in their actions? Which would have a corrosive effect on the working atmosphere and community spirit, which were the greatest, and indeed the only, guarantee of the people of Darmstadt. The cracks in the fan scene that appeared after the debacle against Augsburg could do the rest.

On Thursday afternoon, coach Torsten Lieberknecht once again reflected on the “big shit we did” and spoke of “not an easy week”. But the person from the Palatinate would not be himself if the optimism did not predominate. “My feeling tells me that we managed to get the team back on track. When we entered the training ground, every unit was carried out with even more concentration than usual,” said Lieberknecht.

A look at the most recent Bundesliga history shows that in the past six years, after 24 match days, teams were almost always heading for seemingly certain relegation – and were no longer able to avoid it. In addition to outsiders like Fürth and Paderborn, there were also traditional brands like Schalke, Nuremberg, Hanover and Cologne.

In this comparison, the “Lilien” benefit from the historically favorable constellation that, despite only having achieved 13 points, they are only four points away from potentially saving relegation place. In previous years, the respective sixteenth-placed teams had always collected between 19 and 23 points at this point in the season.

The Darmstadt team has been waiting for a win for half a series, i.e. 17 games in a row. And the series should also get the eighteenth and nineteenth post, after all, this Saturday (3:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) it goes to RB Leipzig, before FC Bayern visits the Böllenfalltor a week later.

It will take a while “until everyone comes to terms with themselves,” said goalkeeper Marcel Schuhen after the FCA fiasco. After the Bayern game at the latest, the South Hesse team should have collected themselves again in order to preserve their small chances. Comparisons with Bochum, Mainz, Cologne and Heidenheim follow in quick succession.

It will be interesting to see how Lieberknecht organizes his (internal) defense after the Augsburg experience in Leipzig – regardless of whether he plays with a three-man or four-man chain. Hair-raising mistakes by Jannik Müller, Klaus Gjasula and Emir Karic led to direct goals being conceded, but Matej Maglica also made significant mistakes. “They were individual blackouts that I have never experienced before,” said Lieberknecht, with his wealth of experience from 547 games as a professional coach.

Alex Westhoff, Darmstadt Published/Updated: Alex Westhoff, Darmstadt Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1 Alex Westhoff Published/Updated:

Christoph Zimmermann is expected back in the starting line-up in the center of defence, while millionaire signing Christoph Klarer was surprisingly not in the squad recently twice. Due to injuries, the regulars Fabian Holland (concussion), Matthias Bader (torn muscle fiber) and Fabian Nürnberger (ankle injury) are not in the squad for the business trip to Saxony. What makes the task for a recently hard-hit newcomer to a Champions League club that was unfortunately eliminated against Real Madrid on Wednesday become a Herculean task.