After remaining unbeaten in February, we entered March in a confident mood with some potentially favourable fixtures alongside a couple of very important ones – all of this being done in the continued absence of top-scorer Jannik Mause, the main man still struggling for fitness after his injury.
Our first opponent were fellow shock-troops TSV Steinbach Haiger, promoted from the Regionalliga like ourselves and, also like ourselves, found them comfortably ensconced in the upper reaches of the table.
Despite the home advantage, the impact of not having Jannik back meant that our attack didn’t have the cutting edge we needed for this game, evidenced by both their goalkeeper getting MOTM and the game finishing in a rather disappointing goalless draw.
Hot on the heels of the draw with Steinbach at home was a trip to Eintracht Braunschweig, who were looking to complete a league double over us after convincingly beating us at Tivoli earlier in the season.
The biggest boost for us was that Jannik Mause made his long-awaited return to the side, slotting into his preferred role as an Inside Forward on the left wing.
Mause’s influence upon his return was felt pretty much from the first whistle as his trickery on the wing and vision allowed him to break into the box and tee up an effort for Dennis Dressel that smashed against the inside of the post before going out for a goal kick.
The hosts created a couple of clear cut chances of their own through their full-backs, but they weren’t able to hit the back of our net and for the second game in succession, we drew a blank.
The match with Saarbrücken, an utterly crucial one if we were to reel in the top three* for a chance at automatic promotion, is a crucial one, and having two goalless draws and a star attacker battling to shake off rust is certainly not ideal heading into it.
Nevertheless, we were at home and the Tivoli crowd has seen more ups than downs this season in terms of attacking performances – even though five of our six league defeats have come on our own patch.
And concerns we were about to add another L to the column were there early doors as the visitors struck the woodwork from a corner after just seven minutes before Marco Müller cleared the danger.
Müller was once again the man to thank four minutes later when his timely flick of his boot ensured that Gnaase’s shot was deflected away from goal when it looked certain that the away side were going to score.
The visitors could be forgiven for thinking that our goal was living a charmed life as a curling shot from Jacob beat Joshua Mroß all ends up – only for the effort to strike the post and our (relieved) goalie was able to collect the ball.
Just shy of the half hour mark, it was our turn to threaten but good work by Falcao to play in Selim Gunduz was undone by smart defending from the visitors as the Brazilian’s cute reverse pass was intercepted just before Selim could get a shot away.
The hour mark passed and once again, the visitors were close to opening the scoring, Gnaase with a speculative flick volley that sailed harmlessly wide of goal, but Joshua Mroß wasn’t to know that.
In the 77th minute, after taking a fair battering, we withdrew Falcao for Jannik Mause in the hope that he could inspire us in the final quarter of an hour.
Within five minutes of his introduction, he did what all star men do and made the difference, latching onto a long ball forward from Dennis Dressel against a tiring Saarbrücken defence he took one touch to steady himself before rifling home into the top left-hand corner of the goal.
Just three minutes later and we doubled the lead when the provider for the first goal, Dennis Dressel got in on the act.
Played in by first goalscorer Mause, he dribbled on before coolly slotting home into the bottom-left hand corner from the edge of the box, it was lift off at Tivoli in such a pivotal game!
After that burst, the visitors were clearly floored and we even had time to add a third against our shellshocked opponents, Jannik Mause capping a stunning return to form off the bench with a second goal of the game.
Turning two Saarbrücken defenders, he latched onto Julian Schwermann’s pass before smashing the ball into the bottom-right corner.
Perhaps we might get more than the playoff after all…
Months ago, the prospect of facing Duisburg to close out March after a big win to reel in the automatic promotion contenders seemed mouthwatering, but things have changed and the hosts came into the game on a long unbeaten run that had propelled them from near-certainties for relegation to relative safety.
It was certainly a game to approach with a degree of caution despite the fact we’d broken our duck of not scoring in the previous game, a statement victory that gave us cause to believe we can challenge for automatic promotion to the second tier to go along with a strong away record.
In the end the hosts created more clear cut chances, while we had come the closest to scoring and thus it was rather fitting that, like the other games before the Saarbrücken one, ended goalless.
A month of not conceding, albeit with three goalless draws mean we’re sitting fairly pretty with a lot of teams behind us hoping we slip up.
We play Aue (A) and Zwickau (H) in April, two huge matches that will certainly determine how the season shakes out, there’s also a possiblity (probability) that Bayern II will have won the league by the time we face them and any points there could be crucial too.
Also, next month we have our Mittelrheinpokal semi-final, making the trip to the West German capital to take on a Bonn side who gave us some bother in the league last season.
Until next time, folks!
Marc
Kartoffel Kapers 