“This season is making my head hurt,” Sasha said, leaning over the table, hands holding her head.
“You sure it’s not the beer?” asked Heinrich, taking a healthy drink of his own.
“No,” Sasha said, looking up. “Maybe it’s the crowd.” The bar was a lot more…active these days, especially after games. When the locals finally realized Dynamo wasn’t getting demoted anytime soon, the crowds started to grow, and more fans started to show up. Some of the joined the Supporters group, others didn’t. A Lot of new faces, a lot of new noises.
“How do we beat Hannover but draw to Munich? How do we draw Munster AND Nuremburg?”
“Cruyff’s Law,” Hans replied, and everyone looked at him. “Cruyff’s Law,” he repeated. “The Ball is Round.” He said it as if it was the answer to everything. “Hey, at least we beat Dresden, ja?” The others all nodded.
“Heinrich, another round please?” Sasha asked, head back in her hands. With a sigh and a smile, Heinrich nodded and stood up, heading to the bar. A few moments later there was a commotion, and the rest of the table headed over to see why.
“Are you illiterate?” Hans asked. There was small group of people huddled around coaches stool, all of whom were looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
“The seat was empty,” one of the guys started to say. He was well dressed, a nice business suit, but without the tie.
“And the sign on the seat, and on the bar in front of the seat, and on the wall next to the seat, and the fact there’s forty plus other people here now and none of us aren’t sitting there wasn’t a clue?” Hans asked.
“He sat in Coaches seat?” asked Uwe.
“He what?” Sasha asked, stepping forward only to be held in place by Hans and Uwe’s hands on her shoulders.
“It was unoccupied-”
“For a reason you idiot!” Sasha said, squirming away from the hands holding her. She walked thru the crowd as it parted in front of her. “The sign here,” she said, slapping her hand on the wall next to the chair, “And the sign on the bar, and on the back of the seat, and I bet the barkeep told you as well, but you didn’t care because-” Sasha was standing in front of him, getting ready to scream up into his face some more. She sniffed, and the guy standing in front of her furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
“I smell <sniff> arrogance,” Sasha said. “I smell <sniff> entitlement. Hubris<sniff>, I smell hubris, and <sniff> disrespect.” she said. Then she sniffed deeply once more.
“I smell….Bayern…” she said, looking right at the man. “Admit it,” she said, stepping forward, forcing him to take a step back. “You are in the city on business, maybe even in the area. Wanted a drink and a bite afterwards, came here, saw it was a supporters clubs bar and didn’t care, saw the signs on the wall and the chair and didn’t care, sat your entitled ass down-” she poked him in the chest, forcing him back another step, “Because you think the rules don’t apply to you?”
“Lady, you had best back off-” one of the other men in the group said. Sasha looked around the man in front of her at the one addressing her.
“Or what?” She said with a sweet smile. She leaned back in front of the man standing in front of her, and looked up at him, still smiling.
“Scheisse,” Uwe, Heinrich and Hans all said at the same time.
A second later, the guy who sat in coaches seat was whooping in pain, as Sasha’s knee caught him right in the gonads. He was bent over, gasping for breath, when Sasha grabbed him by the hair, and threw him into the bar, where he fell in a jumbled heap.
“Oder was, guter Herr?” Sasha asked, ignoring the guy behind her, who was now a moaning pile of limbs. “No answers?” she asked. “Fine. Wer ist als nächster dran?”
“I did not have sitting in jail before Christmas on this years Bingo Card,” Uwe said, sitting with his back against the wall. It had been about an hour since they Police had processed them in, and they were trying to get as comfortable as they could. None of them were sure how long they were going to be there.
“I’m sorry,” Sasha said from the next cell over. She was lucky, sort of, as the only female in the group she was in a cell by herself.
“I would say this is the strangest thing to happen to me this year, but there are still days left in December,” Hans replied.
“Hows your jaw?” Sasha asked.
“Fine,” Hans replied. “How’s your hand?”
“I broke a nail,” Sasha replied, voice sad. Uwe couldn’t help it, he smiled.
“They got what they deserved,” Heinrich said. He looked around the current surroundings. “Then again, so are we.” A door opened, and steps approached the cells they were in.
“Alright you lot, your bail has been posted, lets go,” the older cop who had helped process them in approached, and opened the door. They all stayed in place, looking at him. “Fine,” the cop said, “If you want to stay, stay.” He made to shut the door, but the guys all clambered out, and then waited as Sasha’s door was open and she came out.
“I’ll pay you back, I swear,” she said. She was quiet, she always got quiet when she was apologetic. It was rare, which was how the guys knew she meant it.
“Who posted our bail?” Uwe asked, as they followed the cop back out of holding and into the main office area of the station.
“Johann couldn’t have, not this quickly-” Heinrich said, before stopping short, everyone behind him running into him.
“OK, this was definitely not on my Bingo card,” Hans said. On the other side of the office, standing with his arms across his chest, Coach Schmidt stood, staring at them while Klaus was bent over the desk, signing paperwork.
“We’re in it now…” Uwe said.
The season has been a confusing one, but think thats because the team is still trying to jell, because I am still trying to find a starting XI with good rotation, and still trying to figure out what the color of the sky is in Mile Rodic’s world. The kid looks like Tarzan, but he plays like Jane, as the saying goes.
The season got off to a good start. Sort of. Munster is a terrible team, and I thought after we scored we would really do some more, but no, they equalized, and we walked away with a draw.
Against Dynamo Dresden, we thumped them good, Injai getting his second goal in as many games. An Injai Hat Trick against Kickers in the Pokal was very good to see, as was the comeback from two goals down to draw with Schalke. Regensburg has a very good squad, so losing by one to them thanks to a late goal isn’t bad, but a draw would have been better.
We should have beaten Darmstadt, instead it took a 90th minute goal to claw the draw back. Magdeburg isn’t the strongest club either, but their offense was stronger than our defense the five minutes of the game, because that’s when they scored two to take the win. Koln is the best team in the Bundesliga 2 this season, and to be honest as poorly as we played they should have scored more than two. Against Heidenheim, Rodic finally decided to score instead of pass, and yet again again not only did we play down against a superior team in the Pokal, this time Stuttgart, it seemed all the guys except Stocker were in a competition to see who could get the lowest rating. Four of them tied with a 6-1. Beating Bielefeld helps a little bit though.
As a net whole, November and December were very good, Bochum will be fighting for promotion this year so losing by one hurts, but not as much as losing by more than one. Holding Nurnberg to a nil-nil draw was good, as was beating Kaiserslautern and Hannover, but it took Owusu-Odero being a hero between the sticks to secure the draw.
At the halfway point of the season, we are at 26 points, with 7 wins, 5 draws, and 5 losses, which is very good. The problem is the squad is just not jelling. Injai and Rodic do not like playing with each other, while the midfield and defensive line are pretty much set, niggling injuries and the like have made team cohesion pretty much non-existant. I’m still playing the 4-2-4, but noone other than the midfield of Iqbal and Kornvig, and Mengi at WB(R) have stepped up and claimed a spot. I am not expecting someone like Injai to dominate the offense, where every goal comes off his foot (I actually abhor that sort of thing), and more than a few people have stepped up, but unless we get more consistent with how we play, we’re looking at lower mid table again.
The other issue is that any good player who would be able to help the club either doesnt want to come here and/or we can’t afford them, which means the January transfer window is probably going to be a whole lot of sound and fury without signings.
That said, the chances of us getting relegated are slim…
And I just typed that….blivet.
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 