The managing director is gone, the coach can continue for the time being, the fans are on the tree: things are going haywire at Arminia Bielefeld. Crucial weeks are now upon us.
How bad can a point won away from home actually feel? Ask once Arminia Bielefeld after! The 3: 3 at Eintracht Braunschweig on Sunday shouldn’t really be a broken leg in terms of results, after all you scored points with a direct competitor in the relegation battle – so the situation has at least not worsened purely in tabular terms.
Nevertheless, they were more depressed at Arminia afterwards than they have ever been this season.
“Soccer games stopped”
The 3-0 lead after a good 20 minutes was almost wasted again at half-time, and when Eintracht equalized to make it 3-3 with around 20 minutes to go, Bielefeld had to be happy at the end that they didn’t concede their fourth goal as well to have. “Unfortunately, we stopped playing football after 20 minutes,” lamented young attacker Jomain Consbruch.
“We had everything in our own hands today after the 3-0 win and from the 30th minute we didn’t do anything that we had planned. We mustn’t get into this situation in the first place,” said Consbruch.
“Relegated” calls from the fan block
The consequences of this felt defeat were immense: “Relegated” calls rang out from the away block, after the game the angry Arminia fans at the fence demanded the team. That didn’t come, instead the hammer followed on Monday evening: Sports director Samir Arabi, who had been identified by many supporters as responsible for the misery, resigned from his post.
The supervisory board of East Westphalia, threatened with relegation, accepted the 44-year-old’s proposal to resign from his post after a crisis meeting on Monday evening.
Arabi “I’ve always worked with passion”
“I was always passionate about working for Arminia and experienced numerous special moments during that time. In the current critical sporting situation, I would like to make a personal contribution with my retirement so that a new impetus can be set at a central point in the club,” said Arabi.
But how should things continue now? It was actually expected that coach Daniel Scherning would first become the focus of attention and would have to fear for his position. But apparently he can continue for now.
Coach Scherning can continue for now
At least it turned out on Monday morning: The management of the player replacement unit was still the responsibility of the 39-year-old, who asked his players to come out shortly after 11 a.m. With four points from the first six competitive games in 2023 – including four duels against direct competition – Scherning is heavily counted according to results.
Apparently he is allowed to take care of the team at least for next weekend and the difficult home game against top team Darmstadt. A week later, a key game follows with the next home appearance against Nuremberg.
