Of course, it’s far from ideal when the striker comes to the coach a few minutes before an important game at the bottom of the table and says he’s in pain. Valmir Sulejmani had problems with his ribs during the week, so he pulled the emergency brake after warming up. And so, of all things, Rüdiger Rehm had to work on an additional tactical construction site before the game against table fifteenth SV Sandhausen, the team that one would like to catch up with. In Thomas Keller, a central defender played in attack for one half, so it was not a big surprise that the Schanzers didn’t score. The coach then analyzed the 0-0 result as follows: “Normally I would be satisfied, but our constellation is different.” Because with every game without a win, staying in the league becomes less likely.
Even if it was a toothless performance this time after the 5-0 win at 1. FC Nürnberg, the face of the FCI has changed significantly since the first half of the season. Exactly three players from the first half of the season against Sandhausen were still on the field at the start of the season, including five of the six winter signings; the sixth would have been Sulejmani. After all, the newcomers were able to alleviate the personnel problems, a total of nine players were missing, so Marcel Gaus and Stefan Kutschke were infected with Corona, but they have now been tested free.
At the very beginning, the Schanzers showed the self-confidence they had gained during their short trip to Nuremberg. Nunoo Sarpei fired the first shot on goal after 15 seconds, Dennis Eckert Ayensa almost got lucky with a header from the reserve, which flew just wide of the far corner (6th). With the first opportunities for the guests through Pascal Testroet and Erich Berko (7th, 8th) – both times keeper Dejan Stojanovic was able to parry – Ingolstadt’s gameplay was gone, the game then degenerated into a cramped relegation duel, with many standards and duels and little game flow.
The Rehm team were also lucky that they didn’t fall behind before the break: Tom Trybull headed the ball into the short post after a long free-kick cross and somehow Stojanovic was able to save in the fray (26′). There was less and less offensive play from Ingolstadt, even though Sulejmani was substituted on in the second half and he emanated a little more danger; but even after Fatih Kaya came on, who made his comeback at the beginning of December after a shoulder joint rupture, the hosts tried hard but harmlessly. Kaya was far from ready to go over 90 minutes, Rehm said later, Sulejmani held his rib after the final whistle. All of this shows that both operations were stopgap measures.
The FCI has now kept a clean sheet three times under coach Rehm – the trend is at least slightly upwards
In addition, Ingolstadt had to survive the final phase decimated. Sarpei had picked up yellow and yellow-red within four minutes – with the second foul his arm landed unnecessarily in the opponent’s face. For Rehm still “a wrong decision”. Three minutes later, the Schanzer still had their best chance of winning: Dominik Franke flicked the ball to the inside of the post (75′).
But Sandhausen in the majority was the more dangerous team at the end of the attrition battle, Stojanovic still had a lot to do and shortly before the end he also saw the yellow card for delaying the game. “We kept a clean sheet three times,” says Rehm about his first six games as Ingolstadt coach, “that’s where you usually say…” – he gestured with his hand to show: there’s something going on. At the moment, however, he simply has to hope that the personnel situation improves before his team travels to SV Werder Bremen on Saturday.
