Seriously. Another ludicrous red card? That is a yellow. It is not a straight red. Also, Ibisevic fouls Wollscheid on first goal. Elbow into the neck. Hoffenheim plays on with man down and ref calls nothing. Awesome.
Hecking for now still has his job. Board member Martin Bader had a long chat with the players and coaches on Sunday as Der Club is figuring out ways to get out of this horrendous run of late taking only 5 out of 30 points and losing 2 out of the last 3 home games which has seen them drop from 9th to 16th place. There is speculation that Der Club is going after left winger/striker Adam Hlousek from Slavia Prague, who has played with Kaiserslautern in the Bundesliga. Although Hecking like many other coaches is not to fond of the winter transfer window at this point unless he is able to right the ship he'll be gone soon and it may be too late for 1FCN to avoid relegation. Also on a different note Tim Chandler received a two game suspension for the red card on Saturday.
Hecking: Firing him would be a mistake in my opinion. FCN's problem isn't lack of good coaching. It is a simple lack of quality on the roster period. As the politicians here are sometimes fond of saying, "You can put lipstick on pig. It's still a pig." Hlousek: Hlousek is actually a pretty decent player. He could help.
Firing Hecking would be foolish. This team has played a lot better than their position in the table. Mainly an unbelievable amount of terrible referree breaks has costed us 5-6 points. If those don't happen we're on 20 points, having no crisis and headed towards a mid table / lower mid table finish that our team is about at. We definitely have a roster issue at striker and creative mid. We just cannot score goals. The jig is up for Pekhart. He is bad. He cannot finish and brings very little else to the table as the slow, lumbering #10. The best transfer we could make in the winter is finding a striker to loan from one of the bigger clubs who would rather see him get play time at us than on their II team. A creative midfielder would also be nice, but striker more important. We have no depth there and our current starter is garbage. Hecking will turn it around. I think there's 3 teams worse than us in the league.
As far as creative midfield goes, I was dead serious when I suggested that Bader should call Michael Zorc and ask about getting Ilkay Gündogan back on loan for the rest of the season. Gündogan will get more match practice at FCN than he will riding the bench in the second half of the season for BVB. As far as striker goes, I really don't know where FCN can go there. They could ask Bayern for Nils Petersen on loan, but I don't think Bayern will do that. Julian Schieber has only played in two matches for Stuttgart. Maybe ask for him back on loan??? I think he can, I don't know that he will. He needs more quality on the roster. Plain and simple. Really? Who are they? Looking at each club's roster, the only one I would rate below FCN's in terms of quality is FC Augsburg. And even they have two strikers better than any striker on FCN's roster. FCK is close, but they have more players with more "upside" than FCN does. Of course, we know that football is a game decided not only by quality, but also by spirit and effort. I believe this is FCN's chance. But they have to get Hecking some more quality for that roster. They just have to.
Gundogan and Petersen would be amazing. Maybe Petersen is not too far fetched. Unless Bayern suffers a string of injuries (definitely possible with their roster) then he's going to be on the Bayern II side 90% of time. He'd be an instant Bundesliga starter for us. Much more likely than Schieber (tho I would kill to get him back). Stuttgart's Cacau and Pogrebniak have been really out of form. I think main reason Schieber has not gotten much playing time is just injuries. He got the start against Bayern last week since he's finally healthy. I don't think they will risk loaning him out when they rate him quite highly.
Watching the game last Saturday costed me my nervs completely. Of course the referee had not his best day and -as ever- in doubt against the FCN. But from the team came nothing ! I think they are too young to notice what happens. They are all down on the ground, bloodempty (?) and without a soul. No fighting spirit and they also unlearned to play soccer. Also I can´t understand Dieter Hecking always playing with Eigler, Hegeler... Where are Wiesmeier and Mak ? They urgently need succes - anyhow - ! I hope they can win the derby against Fürth but this will mean really hard work. If they play it like they did in kind of the last weeks I fear I will see (being in the stadium for the first time) a painful defeat. But I have also some good news: The CLUB will act in the winter. Stoppelkamp from Hannover, Adam Hlousek (Kaiserslautern), H. Kiyotake (Japanese National team - watch him at youtube!) and also Breno from FC Bayern are discussed. Hlousek in my mind will not help. He wasn´t able to gain acceptance at Kaiserslautern but Stoppelkamp (midfieldplayer instead of Feulner) is not so bad. Kiyotake is a grenade !!!!!!!!!!!! Breno I fear we will not get him because also Hertha BSC is interested in and we do not have the best cards because Heynckes does not like the CLUB. Also a loan makes only sense if the Bavarians will extend his contract first. We will see - and let us all hope the best ! Today by all means we are playing the worse soccer in the league I don´t really know what is my wish for the coming game against Leverkusen. Of course I will be pleased by getting 3 lucky or dirty points there (but I don´t think that it will come true), maybe it needs another really bad game and defeat to wake up the sleeping Nürnberg. Everyone of you true fans of "MY CLUB" I wish peaceful time in Advent.
Here is an article on FC Nürnberg U23 forward Jann George who is going to play for the United States U-23 national team this week. http://www.yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=content&id=8613
WOW!!! Team needed to get a win today and crushed Bayer 04 3-0. Great goals all around, Didavi, Hegeler, and Pekhart.
Really impressive away win! Kudos. Fürth won 5:0 against Union Berlin, Nuremberg 3:0 in Leverkusen ... so it's hopefully gonna be a very exciting Cup derby next Tuesday.
Great win today as for one day at least Der Club is out of relegation zone in 15th place with 18 points, three ahead of Kaiserslautern who play tomorrow. Here is the match report: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=320896&cc=5901 Here are the video highlights: Enjoy!! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsdIpzbUiOc"]Bayer Leverkusen - Nürnberg [0:3] Alle Tore & Highlights - Leverkusen 0-3 Nurnberg - 17/12/2011 - YouTube[/ame]
Y E S ! They made it ! Please Mr. Hecking give them more of theese drugs you must have given them today or yesterday or whenever. A completely changed team. Running, fighting and successful ! All together playing, helping each other, not a playful highlight but a real team-work and the best game this season. I want to see more of this Feulners, Hegelers, Cohens, Pekhardts, Didavis..... ! During the game of Fürth on Friday every hope of a viktory on Tuesday was gone. Today they gave the right answer and my hope came back. I really look foreward to the derby. Greetings to Fürth WE ARE "DER CLUB"
Wow, never expected this! I was just hoping for a draw. Eigler's ball to Didavi was sublime. So was the finish. Hegeler's "volley" off the corner was also a great bit of skill. And Pekhart finally managed a goal despite missing several other chances in the match. Plattenhart delivers amazing dead balls. No coincidence two of our goals came off corners he crossed. Kind of funny that two goals came from Leverkusen players on loan. We're like the feeder team for Bayer. Didavi/Hegeler on loan and Wollscheid headed there at end of year. But today we stuck it to them! Our pressing midfield really got to Leverkusen. Cohen ran his socks off. So did the entire midfield. Leverkusen looked so lethargic and slow on the ball. Many wayward passes from them. Defense was very organized. Feulner looked like a natural RB. Was kind of surprising Leverkusen sent everything down our left using Schurrle to get at Plattenhart/Eigler. This worked pretty well for them, but Feulner proved such a rock at stopping Sam that they gave up on that side. Schafer had some nice saves. Really glad to have him permanently back. We needed a win so bad! Now, maybe we can really get an amazing send off into the winter break if we can knock out Furth in the Cup. Looking forward to one of the oldest and most classic derbies! DER CLUB!
I'll need to find a stream for that game. Should be pretty intense, and one of my friends is heading to the game.
Would be great to get Jon over here, but till then... http://1fcnuk.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/out-came-the-sunshine/
I can´t eat anything, can´t work - I´m so nervous ! But I will go there tomorrow and will support, support, support WIR SIND DER CLUB !!
Here is an article on the Derbies, with its focus on the Championship game in 1920 which Nürnberg won 2-0. http://www.nordbayern.de/sport/als-popp-und-szabo-zu-derby-helden-wurden-1.1732243 What's even more amazing is that in the decade of the 1920s, Nürnberg won the championship in 1920, 1921,1924,1925 and 1927, while Fürth won in 1926 and 1929. Fürth also won in 1914.
I lived in Fürth from 1989-1991. That was back when I was a young soldier. Of course, that was before "SpVgg Greuther Fürth" existed in its current form. The Fürth club was still "SpVgg Fürth" and I would practice with some of their players from time to time.
in the 20th in the German National Team were only players of Nürnberg and Fürth !!!! They went to a friendship game to Amsterdam by train. The Nürnberg players were in the first waggon, the Fürth players in the last one (or vice versa). Riding home in the same way. Between they won the game Sometimes humans are really strange. I still look foreward to the game this evening and I hope of course of a victory of THE CLUB. But I also hope of peaceful fans of both clubs. Wir sind der Club