Christian Preusser quickly disappeared into the catacombs, leaving the team petrified. After the third loss in a row and only one win from the last ten competitive games, Fortuna Düsseldorf’s head coach faces an uncertain future.
Sports director Klaus Allofs had given the coach a guarantee for the game against Nuremberg, and the 65-year-old had announced that the situation had to be assessed. The 0:1 (0:1) defeat did not improve the situation for Preusser, who turns 38 on January 23. In front of 750 spectators in the Merkur Spiel-Arena, Lino Tempelmann (2nd) scored the goal for the guests to win.
After the game, Allofs explained when asked whether Preusser was no longer coach on Saturday: “I would absolutely rule that out. It was not a final. We evaluate the game and not the bare result. The performance was better than in the game for long stretches against Bremen and that makes us look to the future with hope,” said Fortuna’s sports director at “Sky”. Preusser himself explained that this was irrelevant to him at the moment. “I have the content of the game in mind.”
The game against Nuremberg was decided early on. The hosts were caught off guard after just 103 seconds when Tempelmann was able to walk through the Düsseldorf defense without resistance and scored with a deflected shot to make it 1-0 for Nuremberg. Shortly afterwards he even had the chance to make it 2-0.