As of: October 31, 2025 9:11 a.m
After the cup euphoria comes everyday life in the league: second division soccer team Holstein Kiel wants to take the momentum of the coup in Wolfsburg and land their first league win since mid-September today at SC Preußen Münster. To do this, the KSV must finally increase its offensive efficiency.
In recent years, football clubs – like companies in other sectors – have increasingly used the term “family” to describe the internal cohesion and the bond between fans and the club. An almost mantra-like constant narrative of “we for you, you for us”. A visual expression of this is photos of the team, coaches and supervisors in front of the fan curve after successes: everyone on board. Family.
At Holstein Kiel, this “family photo” was a little more “wide angle” on Tuesday evening after the well-deserved advance in the DFB Cup against VfL Wolfsburg (1-0). 42 people adorned the picture in front of the guest block in the “Wolves” arena.
Why? The KSV traveled to the Mittelland Canal with a “full band” and completed a kind of short training camp in Wolfsburg after the cup game. “Everyone will be there: the entire staff, the injured players and also the boys who are not in the squad,” Holstein coach Marcel Rapp explained at the beginning of the week.
Short training camp as an opportunity to continue to grow together
According to his simple calculation, this “simply saved us the trip. Because if you think about it: driving back from Wolfsburg at night and then back to Münster would be a challenge that is not that easy. That would be very difficult for regeneration, which is extremely important.” That’s why they stayed in Wolfsburg and drove on to Münster on Thursday after training. The duel with table neighbors SC Preußen is scheduled there today (6.30 p.m., in the NDR Livecenter).
Another motivation for Rapp: The time together in Wolfsburg was not inconvenient for him as a small team-building measure. With 14 additions and 15 departures after Bundesliga relegation, he has to manage a lot of changes in the squad. “We won’t go rafting between games. But there’s still enough time for us to do something together as a group,” he said.
Results like a binary code or: KSV needs goals
Now of course the whole thing is not a family trip, but a business trip. Because football – despite all attempts to create homeliness – is still, above all, a business in which results are needed. And from the perspective of the Schleswig-Holsteiners, they read almost like a binary code of zeros and ones: 0:1 (Elversberg) and three times 1:1 (Darmstadt, Nuremberg, Bochum) in the 2nd league, plus the 1:0 at VfL in the cup.
In order to break out of this “code”, the Rapp team, which, together with Eintracht Braunschweig, has the second-worst attack in the league with only eleven goals in ten league games so far, would have to score more reliably. The KSV actually has the chance to do this in every game, but the efficiency is lacking with equally unsightly regularity.
Münster already conceded 19 goals
Since his newly assembled team is creating plenty of scoring opportunities, the coach is optimistic that the weakness in finals will subside over the course of the season: “I have complete confidence in that.” Especially since the SCP is up against one of the weaker defenses in the league. The Westphalians have already conceded 19 goals so far.
Rapp can send almost the same team onto the field in Münster as in Wolfsburg. Only league keeper Jonas Krumrey is likely to replace cup goalkeeper Timon Weiner between the posts. If the team takes the momentum of the cup coup with them, there is a good chance of turning what has been a good week into a very good one with their first league win since mid-September (3-0 against Karlsruhe). And that would also offer another opportunity for a large-format “family photo”.
Possible lineups
SC Preußen Münster: Schenk – ter Horst, Heuer, Jackel, Kirkeskov – Preißinger – Bouchama, Sertdemir – Batista Meier – Lokotsch, Batmaz
Holstein Kiel: Krumrey – Zec, Johansson, Komenda – Rosenboom, Knudsen, Schwab, Tolkin, Bernhardsson, Therkelsen – Kapralik