Not FC St. Pauli and not HSV either: Holstein Kiel secured the autumn championship in the 2nd league. Nobody expected this before the season. The proud “Storks” are flying towards promotion to the Bundesliga.
“Frontrunner, frontrunner, hey, hey,” sang the fans of Holstein Kiel and celebrated a perfect end to the first half of the season. With a confident 3-0 win against Hannover 96, Kiel achieved its fifth win in a row on Saturday evening. “We are happy about the table situation, the points and also the way we are playing. That makes us very proud,” said coach Marcel Rapp.
A day later, the “Storks” were even prouder – of the autumn championship. St. Pauli made a mistake with a completely unnecessary draw against Wehen Wiesbaden and ended up in second place in the final tally of the first half of the season.
The big names in the league are weakening
And the other supposedly big ones can’t keep up with the Kiel team at the moment. At third-placed HSV, the future of coach Tim Walter remains unclear even after the 2-0 win in Nuremberg. Bundesliga relegated Hertha BSC is already ten points behind Kiel after a 0-0 draw against bottom-placed Osnabrück. At FC Schalke there is a gap of 15 points.
Kiel is the class leader and nobody expected that before the season. Especially because there was a big upheaval on the fjord in the summer. 15 players left the club, including long-standing top performers such as former captain Hauke Wahl, veteran Fin Bartels and winger Fabian Reese. In return, eleven new players were added. Nevertheless, there were no adjustment problems. Four of the first five games of the season have already been won outright.
“I think a lot has been done right with the additions.”
— Benedikt Pichler
“Every single player who was brought in is really extremely hungry,” said striker Benedikt Pichler. “There are no players who see Kiel as the last step in their career and want to end their career slowly. Especially for the young players, it is actually a great opportunity to develop.”
Examples of this include 19-year-old full-back Tom Rothe, who was loaned from Borussia Dortmund. Or the 20-year-old central defender Colin Kleine-Bekel, who was trained in Dortmund but has been under contract in Kiel since the summer of 2022 and has already played four international matches for the German U21 national team.
Another strength is the breadth of the squad, especially in attack. The fact that the two most successful scorers to date, Pichler (seven goals) and Steven Skrzybski (five goals), missed the last two games of the first half of the season was easily compensated for thanks to the Japanese national player Shuto Machino and the up-and-coming Fiete Arp.
Arp: “We are so hungry”
Arp in particular is in strong form. The former HSV and FC Bayern Munich striker also scored twice against Hannover (27th/45th). “For me it’s just a great finish because I worked hard for it,” explained Arp. Speaking about the chances in the promotion race, he said: “We’re not putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. I think we’re just having a positive upswing. We have the confidence that we’ve earned and we have this hunger to keep picking up points and staying at the top .” Arp didn’t know then that he and his team would be spending the winter at the top.
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Sports club | 12/17/2023 | 11:35 p.m
