Schlagwort-Archiv: Idiocy

Time keeps on running and the games keep coming

Veröffentlicht am 28. Oktober 2008 | Kommentare deaktiviert für Time keeps on running and the games keep coming

I still don’t have much more time than a few weeks ago, so updating this close to therespective matches still is difficult. Therefore, a double update today.

First off, on Saturday, October 18th, Magdeburgg disappointed everyone yet again. In the home match against VFC Plauen the team only managed a nil-all draw. This Plauen team was one of the more harmless opponents that have trod the pitch at Stadion Magdeburg, only beat in that respect by Hertha’s reserves. Plauen were yet another team who were glad to come out with a draw in Stadion Magdeburg, having a line-up with just one forward, as part of a most defensive 5-4-1 tactic.
Magdeburg again suffered in the midfield, unable to get the ball through to their forwards, and when the passes found a receiver up front, the forwards wasted their chance. In all, the draw was most deserved, but of course a disappointment in the light of Magdeburg’s ambition.

Line-ups
1. FC Magdeburg: Beer – Bankert, Wejsfelt, Rosin, Zander (52′ Neumann)- Dragusha (61′ Reimann), Gewelke, Racanel (73′ Matthias), Watzka – Vujanovic, Braham

VFC Plauen: Hruby – Six, Hoffmann, Boden, Wendler – Paulick, Böhme, Schulze, Soltau, Schindler (85′ Hoßmang) – Zimmermann (82′ Marrack)

Score summary
Nought

Attendance
7,769

On Friday last already, Magdeburg had their next match. Travelling to the 2006 FIFA World Cup venue in Leipzig, Magdeburg faced FC Sachsen Leipzig. This was a special match for a number of people. No less than four FC Magdeburg players have played for FC Sachsen before – Catalin Racanel, Christian Reimann, Mats Wejsfelt and Maximilian Watzka – and Magdeburg legend Dirk Heyne is now manager of Leipzig. Heyne was sacked in the winter of the past season after his Magdeburg team had slipped into the relegation zone.
Magdeburg’s manager Linz had reacted to the continuing bad performances of some players and replaced Dragusha with Matthias and Zander with Neumann. This necessitated some changes in positions. Bankert moved to the right side of the defense, to allow Neumann to work on the left side, and Racanel moved out to the left wing, allowing Matthias to take position in central midfield. Unluckily, however, Matthias was not able to get into the game and this led to Magdeburg’s midfield being unable to control the game. Worse was the fact that Racanel moved to the inside to compensate for Matthias‘ inability. In consequence, the left wing was largely orphaned and as the forwards, especially Braham, kept going backwards to the midfield to gain possession, an effective attacking game could not be played.
The fact that Magdeburg came away with three points from this match is largely due to Sachsen Leipzig sucking even harder than the Magdeburg squad. Virtually no organized play was visible whenever the hosts had the ball, and after seeing that, it is clear why the team have only scored three goals in 9 matches. Magdeburg’s goal came off a corner kick that Najeh Braham headed to Wejsfelt who had no difficulty scoring from 6 yards out. In the following minutes Magdeburg largely controlled the match, and whenever they slipped up, they could be sure that no harm would come off it, as Leipzig were totally inept in front of goal. This changed a little in the last 20 minutes, when Leipzig took more control, but their ineptitude continued. Thus Magdeburg ran out 1-0-winners, but the match was certainly not one of those that cause euphoria in fans.

Line-ups
FC Sachsen Leipzig: Lippmann – Balic, Baum (81′ Gerber), Köckeritz, Moritz – Hempel – Heinze, Garbuschewski, Rupf – T. Breitkopf (66′ Hönemann), N. Breitkopf

1. FC Magdeburg: Beer – Neumann, Wejsfelt, Rosin, Bankert – Racanel, Gewelke, Matthias (82′ Dragusha), Watzka – Vujanovic (74′ Reimann), Braham (90′ Prest)

Score summary
31′ Wejsfelt 0-1

Attendance
6,931

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The pain goes on…

Veröffentlicht am 28. August 2008 | Kommentare deaktiviert für The pain goes on…

Last sunday, 1. FC Magdeburg had its first home game of the season. Hopes were high that a win would be possible for the first time since March. These hopes couldn’t be dampened by thefact that the opposition was none other than former German champion (1912) Holstein Kiel, a team against whom Magdeburg had a less than favorable record of 1-1-2, although none of the home games had been lost. The way the team had presented itself versus Hannover hadn’t been too convincing, but it seemed to be good enough to see of the challenge of Kiel who had lost their first match.
Unfortunately though, things aren’t always what they seem and so in what was an abysmal performance, Magdeburg lost in front of about 11,000 infuriated spectators by an admittedly unlucky goal. Over the entire game, Magdeburg probably generated about 3 or 4 great opportunities, but none of them were converted. Next sunday the club play in Babelsberg, but I’m not exactly holding my breath…

Lineups
1. FC Magdeburg: Beer – Bankert, Prest, Probst, Neumann – Rosin (61′ Reimann), Racanel (83′ Siga), Gewelke, Dragusha (59′ Watzka) – Vujanovic, Braham

Holstein Kiel: Frech – Boy, Jürgensen (74′ Brückner), Schyrba, Rohwer – Hummel, Vujcic (82′ Schulz), Lartey, Nouri – Wulff (72′ Guscinas), Hoffmann

Scoring summary
53′ Lartey 0-1

Attendance
11,327

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I came here for this?!

Veröffentlicht am 2. Dezember 2007 | 1 Kommentar

Magdeburg played Bremen’s reserves last Saturday, and it was a step backwards, compared to the match against Wuppertal the weekend before. The referee wasn’t exactly helpful, as he called a number of fouls that would have been considered regular challenges by most other people. As Bremen were the superior side, technique-wise, Magdeburg was hurt more by this style of refereeing. They picked up a number of yellow cards in the first half, some of which appeared extraordinarily harsh. FCM were unable to string even as few as two passes together, especiall Andy Müller (as expected) and Björn Lindemann (surprisingly) excelled in losing the ball. In all, Magdeburg’s players seemed nervous and this in addition to the refereeing led to a first half that was without any actual highlight. Bremen added their incompetence in scoring to complete the picture.
In the second half, Magdeburg put up somewhat more pressure and this was rewarded with a goal in the 57th: Manai hit a freekick towards the 6-yard-line where Gerster put his head to it and the ball went in. Magdeburg’s yellow cards came back to haunt them within miutes of the goal as Gerster was sent off with his second yellow (this one well-justified). The send-off brought massive agitation as both Magdeburg players and fans were not exactly happy with that decision. During the ensuing freekick Magdeburg’s captain Kallnik sort of forgot himself in all that excitement, and Werder seized the opportunity. Amidst a disordered Magdeburg defense, they equalised with a fine long shot from Kruse. No more goals were to follow, but overall Magdeburg were lucky to come away with a point.
As feared the Wuppertal match seems to have been a fluke. It needs to be pointed out that Magdeburg were unable to adapt to the style of refereeing, although that style shouldn’t have been a surprise to them. The statistics are there for everyone to see and interpret. The ref also didn’t let the Bremen players take their freekick unhindered…
Yet, with all due respect, the standard of refereeing was extremely poor, as the actions of the referee attained more importance than those of the players. The only positive thing is that the distance to the magic #10 spot is still unchanged at 5 points.
The winterbreak better be used to attract helpful players, and maybe manager Heyne should think about why he had to answer questions as to why the team doesn’t perform with „I do not know“…
On Janaury 19th, Magdeburg play a friendly against FC Schalke 04…a good opportunity to show off any improvement…

Lineups
1. FC Magdeburg: Unger – A. Müller, Grundmann, Kallnik, Probst – Lindemann, Gerster, F. Müller – Manai – Agyemang (88th Kukulies), Jarakovic (76th Kullmann)

SV Werder Bremen II: Mielitz – Holsing, Erdem, Mohr, Peitz – Heider (50th Grundt), Kruse, Löning, Artmann – Stallbaum, Schindler

Score summary
57′ Gerster 1-0
59′ Kruse 1-1

59′ Gerster 2nd Yellow

Attendance
7,041

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Crisis – and no consequences?

Veröffentlicht am 20. November 2007 | Kommentare deaktiviert für Crisis – and no consequences?

On Monday evening, the FC Magdeburg held an emergency meeting. After defeat in Essen the distance to the magical 10th position had grown to 6 points and the club have now been now waiting for a win for 5 league games.
Many had expected manager Dirk Heyne to be sacked yesterday, but despite speculation as to his successor being rife, no decision has been reached yesterday, as has transpired now. The board still have not issued a statement.
It seems that despite knowing that FC Magdeburg will need to gather 34 points from the remaining 19 league games, the board believe that there is still ample time to allow for some more experimentation on the side of Dirk Heyne and the team.
I personally do believe this to be a very bad decision. From my perspective, Heyne has failed to deliver a convincing performance in the past twenty league matches. The one consistency in these matches has been the enormous lack of an attacking strategy. This lead to the team’s helplessness whenever an opponent took the lead in a game. Generally, FC Magdeburg were unable to control a game no matter who the opposition, and despite a ordinarily well-working defense, were hardly ever able to avoid conceding one or more goals. Due to the lack of offensive power, conceding a goal always meant losing two or all points.
In the past twenty league matches, Magdeburg have not turned around any game, and they also have not been able to retake the lead after an equaliser.
Of the past twenty matches, Magdeburg only won 5, drew 7 and lost 8. Six of the draws ended 1-all, and half the time Magdeburg lost a lead in these games (vs. Leverkusen II in May, Energie Cottbus II in August, and vs. Union Berlin in November). In their 8 losses, Magdeburg managed to only score 5 goals – and two of these were scored in the last season in the loss at Emden. And now let’s look at the 5 wins, shall we? In these 5 matches, Magdeburg didn’t concede a single goal, three wins were 1-0 affairs, one a 2-0 and the „biggest“ win a 3-0. Both these latter matches were against inept opposition, the three former were only won with a huge amount, especially the 1-0 against Dresden in August.
There is no improvement visible at all. Considering the rather long period (we’re talking 6 months here, remember) Heyne had to improve the situation, I do not see how he could possibly turn things round in the winter break. Especially considering the fact that the teams in the upper half of the table will most likely begin approaching the club’s better players, such as Florian Müller or Ivica Jarakovic.
In my mind, the board should have sacked Heyne on Monday.

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An early goal! – Oh crud

Veröffentlicht am 12. November 2007 | Kommentare deaktiviert für An early goal! – Oh crud

Two good things can be said about FC Magdeburg’s match against Union Berlin. First, there is Florian Müller’s goal and his overall great performance. Second, there’s the choice for sponsor of the day: Against „Eisern Union“ (Iron Union, a common nickname for the club from Berlin-Köpenick) a company which specializes in recycling and scrap iron filled out this role.
The rest is silence, as the Bard says.

Lineups
1. FC Magdeburg: Beer – Grundmann, Prest, Wejsfelt – F.Müller, Habryka, A.Müller (79′ Manai), Gerster, Neumann – Lindemann (62′ von der Weth), Jarakovic (62′ Zander)

1. FC Union Berlin: Glinker – Ruprecht, Stuff, Göhlert, Schulz – Gebhardt (88′ Spasskov), Streit (46′ Younga Mouhani), Mattuschka (85′ Zschiesche), Bemben – Patschinski, Benyamina

Score summary
2′ Florian Müller 1-0
75′ Ruprecht 1-1

Attendance
12,874

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Ok, so that was not all…

Veröffentlicht am 5. November 2007 | Kommentare deaktiviert für Ok, so that was not all…

After the most disappointing defeat against Babelsberg , Magdeburg had the misfortune to travel to Rot-Weiß Erfurt, one of this season’s top teams. Erfurt had the possibility of climbing to the second spot in the table, they only had to win the match. And that shouldn’t be a problem, judging by the results of both teams so far. Magdeburg had only managed to produce 13 goals in 14 matches, while conceding 14, Erfurt by contrast had scored 31 times, among their games such memorable encounters as the 6-3 home victory against Ahlen – they had been down 0-2 after twelve minutes.
      Magdeburg could not draw any hope from their own performances, especially not from the past two league matches. But there was still a silver lining, as Erfurt were missing no less than three key players: Midfielder Schnetzler had been suspended after picking up his 5th yellow card, forward Kumbela had been banned for a week and two cup matches after headbutting an opposition player in Erfurt’s cup match mid-week. Last but not least, Brazilian midfielder Thiago Rockenbach da Silva was out with an injury. Still, Erfurt were favorites to win the match, but against my better judgment I took it upon myself to undertake the 140-mile trip to the capital of Thuringia.
      Upon arriving at Erfurt’s Steigerwaldstadion, two things immediately caught my attention. First, the presence of low-alcoholic beer proved the police considered the match one of medium risk, and second that the sales personnel was protected by a metal fence from the visiting fans, so you had to grab your beer or Thüringer Würstchen through the fence. I haven’t seen that before in any stadium. Makes you feel thoroughly welcome.
      Anyway, the match started and Magdeburg achieved something unheard of in this season: Dominance. During the first half, Magdeburg didn’t play any fancy football, but they still managed to put Erfurt under so much pressure that the hosts only had two shots on goal in the first 45 minutes.
Magdeburg took the lead when Grundmann put a header off a Gerster cross into the goal. Unfortunately, in all other instances when Magdeburg produced opportunities, there was always an Erfurt player on hand to clear the ball, scratch it off the goal line or what have you.
      And then came the 45th minute, Erfurt were awarded a corner kick and Magdeburg proved unable to put the ball out of their box – Erfurt equalized. Magdeburg’s defenders were too hesitant in kicking the ball out and goalie Christian Beer was not quite up to his usual standard of keeping.
      With quite some apprehension about what might happen in the second half, the teams went into the halftime break, leaving FC Magdeburg fans wondering what was going on. The apprehension was further amplified when Ivica Jarakovic, vital for Magdeburg’s attacking play, was subbed out at half-time. However, Magdeburg continued to work hard, trying to re-take the lead, but this time they were without luck as on their few chances they were denied another goal. Instead, Erfurt took the lead when Magdeburg was again unable to get the ball out of the box. Defensive midfielder Habryka was the unlucky one whose clearance hit Erfurt’s Wolf plain in chest – he had no problems scoring from 12 yards.
      Things got from bad to worse as Magdeburg were now outplayed, and consequently Erfurt scored again. Two of their players found themselves unmarked in 1. FC Magdeburg’s box and Wolf headed in after one of his teammates headed (!) the ball to him – that looked more like a training match. In the end, the deserved penalty after a clumsy challenge by Wejsfelt didn’t really matter anymore. Magdeburg were soundly beaten, and deservedly so.

      What are the conclusions to be drawn from 15 terrible performances in the season so far, with only one or two half-decent half-times? Naturally, after Magdeburg’s third-place finish in the last season, many expected the club to do well in the new season, too, at least it was expected the team would not struggle to clinch the vital top-half finish ( league reform and all that). In reality, it turns out the team was performing somewhat above their abilities in the last season. For the past few games, Magdeburg have shown a certain inaptitude in creating a convincing build-up play and more recently also shown some appalling difficulties in defense (the latter seemed to have been resolved after they had plagued the club at the start of the season). The combination of these two problem areas are of course fatal to 1. FC Magdeburg’s goal of qualifying for the new third tier of German football.
      These difficulties can be traced to one central issue – Magdeburg lack a playmaker, able of consistently putting in good performances. Kais Manai – he filled out that position in the past season, at least for some time – is out of form, and has apparently also had a falling-out with manager Dirk Heyne. Lindemann is not able to act as playmaker because he often lacks vision and also suffers from some difficulties in passing the ball. Gerster is a different case: while he certainly has vision, he often takes too long to decide what to do with the ball and thus slows down the game. Finally, young talent Deumelandt is not experienced enough to perform at Regionalliga level (yet).
      But instead of deciding to take play on the wings (where Magdeburg have some able players), Dirk Heyne apparently has no concept for compensating the lack of a playmaker – and no concept for attacking football at all, it would seem, making it almost impossible for Magdeburg to come back from behind in a game. After yesterday’s match, Heyne’s statements to the press were evident of this helplessness. He said that while in the first half, most things went according to plan, and then went on to say that things get difficult when a team is two goals behind. While there is no argument here, the crux of the matter is the fact that Magdeburg were left two goals behind from being one goal up. Pit Grundmann’s statement made clear that the team themselves have no idea what exactly went wrong – the overall mentality at the club seems to be one of despair and helplessness. As this mentality is apparently shared by Dirk Heyne, I personally do not see another way out of the issue than changing the manager. While Heyne may have achieved much for 1. FC Magdeburg this should not stop the board from drawing a line.
      In football, nothing is as irrelevant as yesterday’s success.
However, there is one event that might turn things around: Magdeburg must beat Union Berlin in their next home game – and comprehensively so. A display of great and successful attacking football is need, and it must be followed up with an equally good performance at the away game in Essen. But I do not believe this is going to happen, sadly.

Lineups
FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt: Maczkowiak – Hauswald, Nowak, Holst, Kohlmann – Wolf (79′ Schubert), Cinaz, Stenzel (82′ Peßolat), Brückner – Bunjaku, Jabiri (88′ Ivanov)

1. FC Magdeburg: Beer – Grundmann, Prest, Wejsfelt – F.Müller (79′ Probst), Habryka (65′ Tornieporth), A.Müller, Gerster, Neumann – Lindemann, Jarakovic (46′ von der Weth)

Score summary
27′ Grundmann 0-1
45′ Cinaz 1-1
61′ Wolf 2-1
72′ Wolf 3-1
75′ Bunjaku (pen) 4-1

Attendance
8,108

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Three in a row

Veröffentlicht am 30. September 2007 | Kommentare deaktiviert für 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.

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