NORTH Sat. 2.30: Verl vs Münster (9 vs 17) – Maurer starts again as head of the three men defence chain. With a win Verl makes forget about all relegation worries. Osnabrück vs Cologne Ama (2 vs 12) – Enochs starts in the central mid. Duty task to collect the three points for relegation, but Cologne is strong on the road. SOUTH Fri, 7.30: Erfurt vs Saarbrücken (7 vs 3): After the disappointing home draw last weekend, Dooley’s team should get a point on the road to not lose contact to the promotion spots. Erfurt is extremely strong at home though. Sat. 2.30: Wehen vs Elversberg (15 vs 17): Many YA and all need the points against relegation. Matarazzo will start in the central defence again for the slight favourite Wehen. Payne is in Elversberg’s goal and Lawson in the midfield and try to keep contact to rank 14. Mason misses with injury. Sun, 3.00: Neunkirchen vs Siegen (19 vs 12): Shoffner won’t see playing time for Neunkirchen as it seems. Siegen got into relegation fight over night as they got three points reduced from a 1-0 win against Bayern Munich’s reserves (turned into 0-2) as they did not have the necessary number of three German U24 and one U21 player on the roster. While van Buskirk is injured and I don’t know about Norkus, Lukin will start as left backer. He btw. played for the reserves in D4 last week when the game of the first team was cancelled.
Dooley's team Saarbrücken drew 0-0 at Erfurt. The score itself is not really bad, but they got to calculate to be five points behind a promotion spot after tomorrow's games now.
I just read about Norkus: He returned from the US on Friday where he was as his sister married (the trip was permitted in the negotiations). During the pre-season he had problems with the gall bladder, which stopped him a little. This weekend he will most likely play for the reserves first of all, which will play in Gütersloh tomorrow (a game I'll of course attend).
Scores: Both North YA lose their home games after late goals 0:1. Don't know about Enochs for sure, but Maurer played - he was mentioned on Radio Gütersloh several times in their coverage (even with US pronunciation, while the TV channels think he's German ). Wehen wins the US duel in the South 1:0 against Elversberg, which now are in an extremely dangerous situation.
Enochs played full 90 yesterday. His post game comment: "We got to talk about elementary things now. In the future we have to play good from the beginning on, and not just in the second half." Today's result: Neunkirchen vs Siegen 0-0 Norkus played the stoppage time with Siegen's reserves in Gütersloh today. I better don't tell you about result and the ref of this game...
Situation after this matchday: Osnabrück dropped to 3 and out of the promotion spots. Verl dropped to 10 and instead of securing their position, they are just 3 pts away from relegation. Saabrücken is 5 pts down on rank 3 without any possibility to climb or fall next week. Wehen jumped from 15 to 11, but still is just two points away from relegation. Siegen dropped to 13, just one point away from D4. Elversberg remains 17th, now being five points away from the rescue. Neunkirchen of course stays at the bottom and with this point today at least avoided to have only half of the points of the second but worst of the league.
Individual performances: North: Enochs and Maurer both full 90 with their teams. South: Matarazzo, Lawson, Payne, Lukin full 90. Question mark behind Shoffner: Siegen's homepage lists him as coming in after 75 minutes, but kicker names another player - I'd rather trust kicker as Siegen also did mistakes in other lineups on their homepage.