8.9 Stuttgarter Kickers(0-2-1, 7th) vs. Alemannia Aachen(2-0-1, 3rd)
Paderborn bizarrely had another draw in their next match and dropped to 4th, while these guys and Havelse have themselves in promotion position early on. This is a big match for us as a dry run; we've not done well historically against AA and they will be our Prestige Cup foe for the qualifying round in a week and a half.
Obviously we'll play a more experienced group in the cup, but I hope they go with this approach there. Convenient gap between the two high defenders for Jedin to get in and try to fire a shot past their sweeper.
Pluntke has been trouble for us in the past, but if we get it through him the keeper is still an amateur. Their primary threat is from
RF Muller, so Ortag was mandatory this match to try and block him off. Our defensive formation is quite dumb-looking, but their skill-deprived and low-accuracy forwards in the middle should not be a problem. Only reason I have five defenders out there is because of who they are(the noob patrol).
Pluntke blocked our first attempt, and one thing you may have noticed is their skilled defenders who can start counter-attacks well. They took it down the open flank, and a long shot out that way resulted in a corner. They got a man free in the box against our weak defenders ... and the shot was blocked out for another corner. This could go on for a while. It didn't though, because they scored on a crap save attempt by
Komolong on the next one(17 out of 40-something). Sigh.
Jedin struck back for us immediately - it's so nice to finally be able to not have to be perfect on defense now that he's a legit threat some of the time. AA maneuvered for another corner. Pretty clear they are going to keep riding that horse. We stopped them this time though - but their midfielders are good enough to just pass it through our defense, including
Ortag. A combination of horrible luck passing it out of defense and another bad effort on their next corner let them score again before the half.
We played for an equalizing score in the second, but most of it was spent trading possession in midfield. A desperate long-range shot had a sliver of a chance at the end but was easily intercepted.
Alemannia Aachen 2, Stuttgarter Kickers 1
Not the result I was looking for, but we do have a shot at beating these guys in the Cup, I'm convinced of it. A better performance from Komolong and this was a draw.
Levels - Jedin(12), Mengele(11)
*** Komolong
** Hirsch
* Naegeli
** Balance: 56.4k(+75)
8.16 TSV 1860 Munchen(3-1-0, 1st) vs. Stuttgarter Kickers(0-2-2, 7th)
Time for our annual 'who gives a crap' match before the Cup interrupts, and this time it's against the only unbeaten club in the Amateur League.
G - Komolong
D - Degner/Naegeli/Schluter/Schulte
M - Preiss/Maslanka/Blank/Pitzen
F - Wachter/Tiel
Komolong narrowly made an early save with a solid effort, and a L2 slide tackle on
Pitzen at midfield failed. I'm amazed at how often these 'suicide squad' rosters will defy the odds - at least for a time. Near the end of the first half they dribbled through
Schluter and scored on a cannon shot, so that was the extent of the resistance. Keep-away was successful enough to hold them out the rest of the way.
TSV 1860 Munchen 1, Stuttgarter Kickers 0
A third straight loss but I actually feel the best about this one under the circumstances.
Levels - Komolong(15)
*** Pitzen
** Schluter
* Maslanka
No resource gains whatsoever. A new 'first'.