Eintracht Braunschweig fights in the relegation against 1. FC Saarbrücken for the whereabouts in the 2nd league. The first game takes place on Friday in Saarland, in both games it will be primarily about physical and mental qualities.
How much the relegation is about psychology has been heard in Braunschweig and Saarbrücken in the past few days. Marcel Goslar, interim co-trainer at the BTSV, said before the first game on Friday in the Ludwigspark (8:30 p.m., in the NDR Livcenter): “We initially conducted many individual and group calls to get a feeling for the guys’s thinking.”
And in Saarbrücken, striker Patrick Schmidt expressed that he and his team have been following: “Keep nerves, keep clear heads”.
Eintracht-deep: desolate games and Scherning refreshment
Two teams, an opinion, one goal – and yet there can only be one. Because the question of how freely in thinking and thus also in the (football) games are significantly decided who prevails in the at least twice 90 minutes and completes the 2nd league for the coming season. Furthermore the second division-16. Eintracht – or the third division third Saarbrücken?
The already big mental task at the BTSV after the “turbulent days” mentioned by Goslar “is still a little larger. Because there are not only the disappointment about the missed direct rescue and the frustration about the last desolate appearances in Elversberg (0: 3) and against Nuremberg (1: 4). There is also the discharge of coach Daniel Schering, who followed the debacle against the FCN on Monday.
“You need some looseness and full self -confidence in order to successfully deny these two duels.”
-BTSV interim coach Marcel Goslar
Eintracht promises to be impulses from interim coach Marc Pfitzner and his team and the right push for the two elementary games for the association. To what extent it can be possible at short notice to “really want to be really for Friday and to adapt the mindset” (Goslar), it remains to be seen.
Because for Pfitzner and Goslar as well as sports director Benjamin Kessel, it is clear that the recently unsettled team “needs a certain looseness and full self -confidence” “to be able to successfully deny these two duels”. Even if the time was short, it was successful since Tuesday.
Total focus – BTSV reduces the squad
In addition to the psycholgic processing of the past few days and weeks in a quick run, it is, according to Interims-Co Goslar, above all about football analysis, “so the boys also know what to expect in Saarbrücken and what solutions we want to find”. According to the rough defeats, it is also important to find back on security and the stability that Eintracht had awarded in the weeks before and led to a series of six unbeaten games.
Kessel emphasized that in the sporting struggle for survival it is primarily about focusing. Another measure in this regard is the reduction of the squad. Robert Ivanov and Mohamed Dräger were “sent on vacation”. This is not a suspension, it is only a matter of contesting the days of relegation with the players, “who also have a chance to stand in the starting eleven or in the squad,” said the sports director.
Braunschweig expects a “very physical opponent”
With the FCS, who only switched from Rüdiger Ziehl to the former Rostock coach Alois Schwartz at the end of April, the “Löwen” awaits a “very physical opponent” in the opinion of the interim coaches.
The Saarlanders are “a team that comes very much about the physical duels. We will defend ourselves and have to accept this way of playing. It can certainly be heated,” said Goslar. It is about “showing that the past two games are not what we stand for”.
Data analysis: This is how Braunschweig can exist against Saarbrücken
- Example standards consistently and connect with targeted penalty area
- Pressing phases dosed, but effectively use – especially in building the opponent
- Leave the game to the opponent, but lock the center
- Use wing structured and strategically – no haphazard flanks
- Slightly adjust the formation: stability on the defensive, flexibility in the switching game
- Use emotions – but not uncontrolled, but tactically guided
Source/analysis: Global Soccer Network (GSN)
The temporary chief coach Pfitzner is optimistic after the training impressions that this succeeds. He felt in the units “Energy and Fire”, which one now wanted to transport to Saarbrücken.
This is also important in order to “take” the last (once again) strained fans. Because it also depends on them – in a network with the team – in order to keep the class over the detour of the relegation.
Nikolaou convinced of relegation
However, the statistics clearly speak for the third division club. Since the relegation of the relegation for the 2008/2009 season, there have been 16 duels between the third of the 3rd division and the third last in the 2nd league. The third division team prevailed twelve times, only four times the second division club managed to stay in the league – most recently in 2020 the 1st FC Nürnberg.
For Jannis Nikolaou, Bangemachen does not apply: “We still have it in our own hands and all chances of beating Saarbrücken,” said the Eintracht defender. “We have already shown in the season what qualities we have and how we can master pressure situations when we bring everything to the square. That’s why I am convinced that we can beat FCS.”
Whether this succeeds will also and precisely depend on who can deal with the pressure better.
Possible lists:
1. FC Saarbrücken: Menzel – Becker, Sonnenberg, Bichsel – Fahrner, Zeitz, Sontheimer, Rizzuto – Rabihic – Brünker, Krüger
Eintracht Braunschweig: Hoffmann – Jaeckel, Bicakcic, Köhler – Rittmüller, Baas, Di Michele Sanchez – Kaufmann, Tempelmann – Philippe, Polter
This topic in the program:
Sport Current | 05/23/2025 | 11:25 p.m.
