The fortress has fallen: After nine months, 1. FC Kaiserslautern has lost a home game again – and the sporting situation is already dicey again despite the interim winning streak.
Everything was set for a beautiful football festival on the Betzenberg: Retro jerseys for the 101st birthday of club legend Fritz Walter, the rainy weather so beloved of the 54 World Champion, and on top of that the reconciliation with goalkeeper coach Gerry Ehrmann, who was honoured with the Golden Merit Pin in front of the well-attended Westkurve 18 months after his dismissal.
But the performance in the 90 minutes of play did not live up to expectations. “It feels really shit to lose a home game here. We started well but stopped playing football after 15 minutes. When we concede the first goal, we are asleep, there is no one there to defend the standard. That simply must not happen to us. After the second goal against, it was disgusting for us. In the second half we showed our true colours again, but in the end you have to take your chances”,
The coach has already experienced some ups and downs in his time at the traditional club since the beginning of February – but a home defeat has not been one of them until now. The last time the Palatinate side lost in front of a home crowd was at the end of January against Wehen Wiesbaden (0:1), which cost Jeff Saibene his coaching job at the time. The situation in the Palatinate is not that bad at the moment, of course, and Antwerpen does not have to worry about his job. However, the 50-year-old will be concerned about the fact that the painstaking race to catch up after the false start has come to a standstill. After four wins in a row, FCK knocked on the door of the top flight again, but after only one point from the last two games, they are back in nowhere. Although only two points behind 4th place, but also only three points ahead of 17th.
Rene Klingenburg couldn’t hold back his anger on Sunday afternoon either, using similar words to his coach (“A really shitty day”) and feeling that the referee had done us a disservice. “At least two penalties for us would have been possible today. When I asked him about it after the game, the referee still says: ‘I don’t know what situation you mean.’ If you see it like that, then you must have been asleep the whole game …”, said Klingenburg, before self-criticism followed “… just like we did when we conceded two goals. “
Losing is forbidden in a “very special game “
The already explosive derby at 1. FC Saarbrücken next Saturday has a decisive character for the Red Devils. A win will allow FCK to move past their arch-rivals and back into the upper echelons of the table. A defeat, on the other hand, threatens to send them plummeting to the basement – in terms of the table and probably also in terms of their newly acquired self-confidence.
But the Lauter players are usually particularly keen on derbies – whether against FCS or Waldhof Mannheim. None of the games against the two neighbours have been lost in recent years. “Next week is a very special game,” said captain Jean Zimmer right after the final whistle. “There we have to make the things we missed today and decide the game for us. “
