Schlagwort-Archiv: Cup games

Not for the faint of heart

After a successful start in the league – beating Lübeck 2-0 at their Lohmühlestadion – 1. FC Magdeburg were to play the first round in the Saxony-Anhalt Cup against Landesliga side VfB Ottersleben. Ottersleben, from a suburb in the West of Magdeburg, play in tier VII, so most 1. FC Magdeburg fans expected a dominant win.
In the match itself, however, Magdeburg showed nothing of the tactics that new manager Ruud Kaiser had tried to instill into the team: it was not a quick passing game, but one dominated by long passes and long dribblings. As neither of these yielded much success, regulation time ended with a nil-all draw.
Luckily, just a few minutes into extra time, FCM’s Stiefel scored the lead. But Ottersleben were far from giving up and produced a number of great counter-attacks that could have led to an equaliser, but in the end they failed to produce a goal from these opportunities. The punishment soon followed when Magdeburg’s Becker scored another to make it 2-0 for the final score. With a sigh of relief, FCM fans noted that the club with his new team had just „won“ the second of two competitive matches, and had again not conceded a goal.
Only three days later, the second cup round was scheduled, this time against tier VI side Preussen Magdeburg. Everyone and their dog were convinced that this would be a different game compared to the first round match – and they were right. Only not in such fashion as they had thought. The match got off to a good start, when Stiefel’s free-kick in the third minute was deflected into the goal and Magdeburg took the lead. The next twenty minutes the Regionalliga side dominated play, but then Preussen began to take over. To be exact, 1. FC Magdeburg were exclusively defending now – and badly at that. Consequently Preussen – whose starting line-up included no less than nine (!) former FCM players – scored the equaliser and with the half-time whistle took the lead. An abysmal FCM defense saw Preussen increase their lead to 1-3 after captain Daniel Bauer involuntarily deflected a long pass to a Preussen forward.
Spirits in the stands weren’t exactly high, most of the spectators no longer believed FCM could turn the match around. With 7 minute to go, however, Magdeburg’s Verkic let one go from 25 yards out, and, luckily, the ball hit the inside of the post to make it 2-3. The match had become hectic, so much so that referee Schweinefuß had failed to send off Preussen’s captain for unsportsmanlike conduct after he pushed Bauer over following a foul. After Magdeburg’s goal, however, a Preussen player was sent off with a second yellow for disagreement. The match did not get any easier for FCM though, as Preussen fought tooth and nail to hang on to their lead, but to no avail, as Denis Wolf scored the equaliser with three minutes left on the clock. In extra time, it was again Preussen who could have taken the lead, but their forward only managed to hit the bar. But in the second half of extra time 1. FC Magdeburg took the lead for the second time in the match, when Eddy Vorm headed the ball in from close range. While spectators were still celebrating, repeatedly chanting „Eddy, Eddy“, Preussen equalised again, when goalie Tischer failed to make contact with a cross. This was completely avoidable, especially as the referee had sent off another Preussen player for a cynical foul on Wolf. Penalties were then needed to decided the match. Here 1. FC Magdeburg had the better goalie, Tischer saved one shot, and made two takers shoot the ball over the goal: 1. FC Magdeburg were in round three. Remarkably, fans celebrated rather than pour out criticism over the young team that had tortured them so much in the game.
On Monday, the team were treated to a 90-minute video analysis session with their manager, and by now should have put the match behind them, especially defender Daniel Halke who admitted it had been his worst match in the past three years. However, none of the players were able to say exactly why they had failed to produce a good performance that day. In any case, 1. FC Magdeburg has won all three competitive matches so far, although there is room for improvement in the manner of these victories.

We can turn things round

Today, for the first time since December, FC Magdeburg’s first team was involved in a competitive match. Since that 1-2 defeat in Cottbus, a number of things have changed in the club.
First of all, a new manager was put in charge, Paul Linz of Trier fame. Three new players were brought in, two forwards and one very experienced allrounder who can play almost everything – Christian Reimann, Najeh Braham (2004 African Cup of Nations winner) and Steffen Baumgart, respectively.
Then, Paul Linz changed the system – instead of Dirk Heyne’s favored 3-5-2, Magdeburg now play 4-4-2. Despite the problems that such a change usually brings, Magdeburg conceded only twice in their preparation matches, one goal each against Sachsen Leipzig and Schalke 04. Also, Magdeburg started to score themselves, losing but one of the preparation matches.

Thus, there was an overall optimism that the team would perform sufficiently well to beat tier IV side Halberstadt in the FSA-Cup today. In addition to that optimism came the knowledge that in the past years, Halberstadt had never ever scored against Magdeburg in a competitive match.
Until today: After a terrible start to the game, Magdeburg’s goalie Unger was stumped in the 12th minute, when Halberstadt’s Gottwaldt put the ball away after a corner kick. However, Magdeburg quickly retaliated and it was new forward Najeh Braham who headed in a Gerster freekick ten minutes later. Magdeburg were still unable to control the game, and especially the right side of the back four were a constant source of trouble, with right defender Friebertshäuser being constantly outpaced by his opponents and…then there was Kallnik. Kallnik is playing the same way he has played since his 30th birthday – slow, no vision, no positioning. When Friebertshäuser had to resort to yet another foul near the box, there was a general feeling of danger in the air, and justifiedly so. Again Gottwald scored and Magdeburg went into the halftime one goal down.

Shortly after the break – and after another Kallnik-caused breakaway when Magdeburg’s Unger had barely won the 1-on-1 – Linz finally saw fit to replace him. He subbed in Zander and Florian Müller for Kallnik and a not very efficient Baumgart, respectively. With this substitution, there were a number of position changes. Left defender Wejsfelt moved to the center, left midfielder Neumann took over as left defender. Lindemann, whose turn as a classic 10 turned out to be an utter disaster, moved to the left, allowing Zander to take over as playmaker. This served to calm the game, as Zander at least tried to pass the ball quickly, Magdeburg were slowly gaining a foothold over Germania Halberstadt. The hosts had resorted to defending their lead, and this they didn’t do too badly. When the equaliser still wouldn’t come, Linz changed formation – he substituted Agyemang for Friebertshäuser (who had gotten better after Kallnik was gone…) and switched to a 3-4-3. That eventually tipped the scales in Magdeburg’s favor, and it was once more Braham who equalised once more with just 7 minutes to go. Agyemang missed the chance to decide the game in regular time, and so extra time was required, much to the chagrin of Magdeburg’s chairman who had to cut short his afternoon plans. In extra time, Halberstadt started to push a little more again, realizing they probably wouldn’t survive thirty minutes without conceding. But it did them little good, as it was Braham’s day today: Just one minute into the second half of extra time, Braham headed home once more, deciding the game in Magdeburg’s favor.

What can be learned? First of all, we have forwards. We do indeed, and they (well, one of ‚em) score, too. Second, if you have to play Prest as a central defender because he’s the tallest, you should put a quick central defender next to him, not an aging 32year-old whose only merit right now is the captaincy. Kallnik has no place in the back four, he’s too slow, he doesn’t position well and he lacks vision. Third, Paul Linz makes changes when he sees something wrong. That’s good. The best part of it being that his changes actually work.

In other news, our U23 won a postponed match yesterday, beating Hallescher FC U23 4-3 eventually. They had led by a 3-0 margin at half-time but through individual errors allowed Halle to equalise, despite their being a man down shortly after the break. Unfortunately, some individuals in the guest area thought the 3-3 equaliser was the signal to toss rockets and smoke-bombs onto the pitch. The police removed Halle’s supporters and afterwards Deumelandt scored the winner.

Our U19, struggling as the team is in the U19-Bundesliga, managed to grab a point at Hertha BSC U19, finishing the game 2-2 despite being 0-2 down at half-time. Here’s hoping that will not be the last points for them.

What the…? That’s all you can do?

I’m lagging a bit in updating, anywy, here goes.

On Saturday, FC Magdeburg played SV Babelsberg 03. Freshly promotoed, Babelsberg had been struggling since the start of the season and have now changed their manager, new at the helm is Dietmar Demuth. He once asked his players (when at FC St. Pauli) to wear down the opposition by scoring constantly. That’s not the tactic he’s using at Babelsberg though. The guest were playing defensively during the entire first half, but as Magdeburg were obviously trying to repeat their Braunschweig performance in terms of attacking play, Babelsberg weren’t really threatened, except for Eric Agyemang’s attempt that went low at the goalie.
In the half-time break, Demuth had obviously told his players that he wanted more than just a draw, and so Babelsberg were becoming more audacious by the minute, culminating in their taking the lead at the 62nd, when Biran scored off a counter-attack. Under a lot of booing and jeering Magdeburg attempted to rectify the situation, but there was not much to be gained from their usual imprecise and hectic passing. However, in the 76th Jarakovic played a great pass at Lindemann who was fouled inside the box. Jarakovic stepped up to the penalty and converted it into the equaliser. In the remaining 15 minutes, Magdeburg pushed to take the lead, but their attempts can once more only be described as hapless… The match ended in a disappointing 1-all draw, giving more force to those who would sack Dirk Heyne, Magdeburg’s manager.

Lineups
1. FC Magdeburg: Beer – Grundmann, Prest, Wejsfelt (67′ von der Weth) – Gerster, A. Müller, Neumann, F. Müller, Lindemann – Agyemang (67′ Kullmann), Jarakovic

SV Babelsberg 03: Busch – Jonelat, Neumann (46′ Hartwig), Rudolph – Mauersberger, Moritz, Lukac, Zenk, Laars – Biran (76′ Stiefel), Frahn (88′ Ben-Hatira)

Score Summary
62′ Biran 0-1
76′ Jarakovic (pen) 1-1

Attendance
7,621

On Halloween, or rather Reformation Day, Magdeburg’s U23 had to play their Lotto-Pokal (formerly known as FSA-Cup) match. In the round of the last 16 teams they were once again facing Germania Halberstadt in a reprise of last year’s semi-final. This time however, Halberstadt won the match 2-1. It has become eviden in these 90 minutes that not only the FC Magdeburg first team, but also the U23 has a problem with build-up play, and the basics of the game, passing and positioning.
Halberstadt took the lead within 10 minutes, but just another minute later was reduced to ten men, as the referee sent off Halberstadt’s Hosenthien. He had attempted to kick a Magdeburg player after said player had committed a foul on Hosenthien. The red card may have been a bit harsh, but it’s the rules of the game. But even with a man more on the pitch Magdeburg was not able to put much pressure on Halberstadt and it took until the 52nd for the U23 to equalise, when Kukulies headed in a beautiful cross at the far post. Haberstadt was not finished off yet though, and in the 70th minute took the lead again when Magdeburg’s goalie Ronneburg went out of his goal too early and missed the ball with his challenge. Even if the ball had not gone in, it’s pretty likely there would have been a penalty, as the tackle wasn’t entirely fair.
With 8 minutes left on the clock the referee made another controversial decision, sending off Magdeburg’s Peter Otte after a foul that at most would have deserved a yellow card. In the end, Halberstadt deserved to win as they were the better team overall.

Lineups
1. FC Magdeburg U23: Ronneburg – Otte, Loth (28′ Zander), Jahnel (76′ Gebauer) – Probst, Friebertshäuser, Schulz (72′ Windelband), Kauffmann – Deumelandt – Kullmann, Kukulies

VfB Germania Halberstadt: Kischel – Sommermeyer, Gottwald, Saalbach, Pölzing – Kopp, Hosenthien – Binsker (75′ Reitzig), Gerlach (83′ Kaczur), Stefke – Banser (88′ Luck)

Score summary
10′ Binsker 0-1
52′ Kukulies 1-1
70′ Kopp

Attendance
600 (only those counted who paid seperately, 1. FC Magdeburg season ticket holders have free admission to all U23, U19 and U17 matches)

And on to the quarterfinal

And that is all the positive things I have to say about today’s cup match versus Preussen Magdeburg.
Jarakovic scored the sole goal for FCM in the 49th, but Preussen equalised with 6 minutes left on the clock.
Frank Gerster also put a penalty kick onto the bar before it was goalkeeper Marian Unger’s moment of glory. He saved two penalties and thus secured 1. FC Magdeburg’s win.

Now that was fun!

Yesterday, while Germany celebrated its national holiday (Day of German Unity, read about it here), several of the football associations that are part of the German FA used the opportunity to play their respective cup tournaments.
In Saxony-Anhalt, it is called Lotto-Pokal, and the record winners are 1. FC Magdeburg. As a Regionalliga side they had a bye in Round 1, and the U23 received another bye, on the grounds of having won the cup in the last season. Yesterday, both teams played in the second round, and both won. Naturally I was unable to attend both games, so a friend and I decided t go to Wernigerode to watch the match of FC Magdeburg first team there.
The pitch was one of the smallest I have seen so far. The distance between the touch line and the spectators can’t have been more than two feet and thanks to this the pitch had another peculiarity: both benches were behind one of the goals.
Magdeburg faced a tier VI side, FC Einheit Wernigerode, and so the game was widely expected to be a rather one-sided affair, although some doubt had crept up due to Magdeburg’s series of bad results.
Dirk Heyne fielded an experimental squad, with a freshly fit Ivica Jarakovi? up front together with Matthias von der Weth. Florian Müller got valuable bench time, as did Stephan Neumann and Christopher Kullmann. Nevertheless, Magdeburg dominated the game from the start and took an early lead, only to have it promptly disallowed for offside. Then Wejsfelt scored, with the same result. But when Wejsfelt headed a corner into the goal, it finally stood and Magdeburg were one up. For the remainder of the first half Magdeburg dominated, but were unable to capitalize on their superiority, thanks to some decent reflexes by Einheit’s goalie.
In the second half, this continued and when Magdeburg got a freekick in front of goal, the choice fell on Lindemann to hit it – and hit it he did, firing a low shot past the wall into the corner that was goalkeeper territory. At least it should have been, judging from the position of the wall, yet the goalie was nowehere to be seen.
Eric Agyemang who had been subbed in for von der Weth brought home another goal after some great work by Jarakovi?. All in all, a very fun hundred-mile round trip with a decent result.

Line-up (only the Magdeburg one, I didn’t catch a program so I’m at a loss for the Wernigerode players)
Unger – Wejsfelt (Grundmann), Prest, Otte – Kallnik (Habryka), Müller – Lindemann, Manai, Tornieporth – von der Weth (Agyemang, Jarakovi?

Goals
Wejsfelt 1-0
Lindemann 2-0
Agyemang 3-0

The U23 team beat Tier IV side VfB Sangerhausen with one goal from defender Marcel Probst apparently.
In the next round, 1. FC Magdeburg will not travel very far – the first team will play Magdeburger SV Preußen (last season’s finalists) while the U23 squad will face Germania Halberstadt, who they beat in the semi-final of last season’s competition. Matches are scheduled to be played on October 13 and 14, although at the moment both the first team and the U23 match are assigned the same date – but here’s hoping I can see both.

On an entirely unrelated matter, FC Magdeburg U19 won their first Bundesliga match when they beat Tennis Borussia Berlin on a 4-2 scoreline.

Three in a row

I’m a tad lost for words right now, as Magdeburg have lost their last three matches, largely due to incompetence and lack of power in the attack.

RW Ahlen – FCM 3-1
FCM – BVB II 0-2
Kickers Emden – FCM 1-0

Let’s see what happens in the FSA-Cup next week when FCM travel to Wernigerode on Wednesday, while the U23 play fourth-tier team Sangerhausen at home.

It was a good fight

but alas, it was not enough. In the past years, Magdeburg had usually gone out on penalties, against Duisburg in 2003 and last year against Paderborn. This time, we didn’t even get that far. But we were better.
In front of a sell-out crowd Magdeburg lost 1-4 to Bundesliga side Dortmund today – but the result doesn’t represent the match very well, as is often the case.
Magdeburg lost today, because of some very avoidable mistakes in the defense, and somehow team captain Mario Kallnik was involved in all of them…

I’m not at all saying Mr Kallnik is a bad player. It’s just become apparent over time (starting here, I think) that he is too slow and cannot organise the defense as well as necessary in order to withstand Regionalliga offenses. Unsurpisingly that was true of his abilities to organise the defense against a Bundesliga offense.

After 30 minutes, Magdeburg was 0-2 down, thanks in large part to Mr Kallnik’s blunders. Luckilx, our new forward Eric Agyemang (whose name supposedly means „savior of the nation“ in Twi, a dialect of Akan, in Ghana) managed to score, so that Magdeburg went into the half-time break only one goal down.
At the beginning of the second half, it was again Agyemang, but his shot only hit the post – and apparently he was offside, just like the Smolarek on the 0-1. Ah well.
Following that opportunity, there were quite a number of moments when Magdeburg could have levelled the score, but it didn’t happen. Bad luck, lacking confidence…I don’t know. And then the usual happened: If you don’t score, your opponents will convert their chances. But even after Dortmund pulled further ahead to make it 1-3 in the 75th, Magdeburg didn’t give up. Florian Müller and Dennis Tornieporth, both of whom certainly made a good game, created a number of chances, but in the end, it was Dortmund who scored again, putting the final score at 1-4.

Nevertheless, the team’s performance was such that it alleviates my fear of the new season a little bit. On Wednesday at 7.30 pm, 1. FC Magdeburg will have another go at winning a competitive match, this time in the Regionalliga and against the reserve team of Energie Cottbus.

Facts:
  4′ Ebi Smolarek       0-1
30′ Diego Klimowicz  0-2
43′ Eric Agyemang    1-2
75′ Mladen Petric      1-3
90′ Diego Klimowicz  1-4

Attendance: 25,230

And here’s what the ARD had to say: