OFC managing director Martin Pieckenhagen has chosen Kristjan Glibo. The reasons are not just financial.
Offenbach – There are two flat footballs lying around in the Kickers Offenbach office. Martin Pieckenhagen comes out of his office and kicks a ball down the hallway. “We need to breathe a little,” jokes the regional league team’s sports director. This fits the situation at the OFC. The club and team need to be pumped up properly again.
Pieckenhagen, 54 and still in tip top shape, came to Offenbach from Rostock away from his wife and daughter. The former Bundesliga keeper has been on site for three weeks and has now swapped the hotel in Heusenstamm for a small place near Bieberer Berg.
He brought a piece of children’s chocolate with him to the press conference; he needs a little energy. It is important to explain why – surprisingly for a critical public after the disappointing season so far – he is sticking with head coach Kristjan Glibo.
After the desolate performance in the 2-0 loss in Alzenau, the sports director explains, he looked very closely at how the coach deals with the players, how much fighting spirit he is still able to spread and how the team reacts to his speech. The result was a 3-1 win against top team Mainz 05 II. “It was clear to me afterwards that the coach hadn’t lost the team.”
Don’t overstretch Kickers Offenbach’s budget: no access in winter
Pieckenhagen wants Glibo’s mentality from every professional. He also noticed that it was noteworthy that the German-Croat was unimpressed by insults, some of which were harsh and “below the belt”. “He didn’t move away after that.” In a personal conversation, the 43-year-old also revealed an appropriate culture of errors, which the sports director did not want to go into in more detail.
Glibo’s contract runs for another year and a half until the summer of 2027, Pieckenhagen made it clear that further cooperation was “not primarily” agreed for economic reasons. Although the situation is apparently anything but relaxed. Will there be winter additions? “We’re watching the market and will calmly consider whether something should be done. There’s a budget. It’s important not to overuse it. Once it’s spent, it’s spent.” The OFC is also “a bit handcuffed” due to the stadium marketing situation.
It would certainly be helpful if the Kickers prevailed against regional league rivals FSV Frankfurt in the quarter-finals of the Hessen Cup in mid-February. “The cup is brutally important for us,” says OFC President Joachim Wagner. If qualification for the DFB Cup main round were possible, more than 200,000 euros in additional income would be due from media revenue alone. Money that the Kickers could really use. Especially since the final will take place on May 23, 2026 in the stadium on Bieberer Berg. A possible “finale at home”, so to speak.
In the regional league, Pieckenhagen admits after looking at the table, the Kickers represent “a bit of mediocrity” with seven wins, seven defeats and six draws. On the other hand, he thinks the six points from three games since taking office are okay.
In the three weeks of his work so far, he saw himself primarily as an “opinion collector”, then compared the opinions of the committees with his opinion and thus came to the decision in favor of Glibo, “which was largely accepted”. He didn’t notice criticism from fan forums because he didn’t read it himself.
In the new year, the Kickers will initially be missing Dominik Crljenec (back) and Onur Ünlücifci (adductors), Pieckenhagen almost sees returnees like Daniel Dejanovic and Marc Wachs as additions. He therefore believes that the team will develop positively and expects “mentality, greed and passion”.
During his time as the manager responsible for sport in Rostock, Pieckenhagen saw that fourth division team Kickers Offenbach saw themselves in a position to spend more money on a player who was also courted by Hansa than the ambitious third division team at the time. “There are some players in the regional league who earn a lot of money,” says the ex-professional and announces that the OFC wants to “streamline itself economically”.
Successful credo for the OFC too: “You have to be able to kill everyone”
Nevertheless, he sees chances of playing for promotion again in the future. He refers to his experiences in Rostock. Promotion to the second league in 2021 was achieved with a team whose budget was at most the fourth largest. But she overperformed with her physical presence. Credo: “You have to be able to kill them all.” The Kickers are still as far away from that as they are from bulging balls in the office. (Jan Christian Müller)
