Premiere: For Farat Toku (M.), the first training session at Viktoria Berlin was also the first as a coach in the professional sector.
Photo: imago images/Matthias Koch
Farat Toku didn’t come to Berlin to see the city. The 41-year-old could hardly have found a more suitable place for this. In Mariendorf, on one of the southernmost corners of the capital, Toku is standing on the grass of the Allianz Stadium on Thursday. He leads his first training session with the third division team Viktoria Berlin. The sports field on the Waldspitzweg is long past its prime. There used to be an imposing wooden grandstand here, framed by two stately towers. Today the wind whistles over the large area.
For Viktoria and Toku this day is a new beginning – somewhere in the middle of nowhere. At least that’s how it feels when you have accepted the association’s invitation to “media-public training”. Through many small, quiet streets, lined with single-family houses, the path to the stadium ends behind the driveway in a large parking lot. You have no idea that just a few meters away, 25 football professionals are training hard, fighting against relegation. The proud Allianz Casino, a building with West Berlin charm of the 1980s, is privacy and soundproofing at the same time. Two pensioners are sitting inside and drinking coffee with their backs to the training ground.
Farat Toku is a quiet guy. Even right on the edge of the field, not every word he says can be understood. He can certainly get loud at times. On this day, however, it’s all about getting to know the team. And to create a positive mood – after the 1: 4 on Wednesday evening at Hallesches FC, the 13th defeat in the last 19 games. Toku finds it difficult to describe himself. He is less reserved when it comes to football. Then there are pithy remarks like the one that says he didn’t come to Berlin to see the city. He doesn’t want to judge his opponents, he says confidently. “We have to take care of ourselves,” Toku explains and is aggressive. “Basically, you win games by scoring goals.”
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There is enough time for talks this Thursday. On the one hand it is a media event, on the other hand not even a handful of journalists accepted the invitation. It wasn’t long ago that things were very different. As a promoted player, Viktoria started with three wins in the 3rd division. “The hype is there,” said sports director Rocco Teichmann to “nd” in August. After ten match days, the Berliners were still in second place behind leaders Magdeburg, at the beginning of November they were still fifth. Now only one place and two points separate the club from relegation. This crash was followed two weeks ago by the separation of promotion coach Benedetto Muzzicato.
Rocco Teichmann stands on the small, grassy natural grandstand and looks across the stadium’s cinder track to the training ground. It is by no means the case that the sporting director likes the calm here. The exciting days with the rise, the good start to the season with sometimes 4000 spectators in the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark in the middle of the city in Prenzlauer Berg and all the great attention, he enjoyed all that. Because it brought the whole club forward. “We may not have done some things well, but we also did a lot right,” he summarizes the past few months. Teichmann has to laugh when he says: “Maybe we were too successful.” He means it seriously. Because the thesis that one makes the first mistakes when one is successful is not entirely wrong.
Many defeats, many goals conceded: “The team was extremely weak mentally,” says Teichmann. Even if everyone responsible for sport in the club would have to question themselves, the change of coach should also bring the famous new impetus to Viktoria. Farat Toku is working on that now. Eleven games remain for him and his team, the fifth youngest in the league, to halt the crash. The coach brings with him the necessary optimism when he speaks of a “good starting position”. That means: Viktoria is in the table of the 3rd league just above the saving line that separates the four relegation places from the rest of the league.
It is part of the business to justify the decision for a new coach with positive arguments. One thing is: “The club and the coach go well together.” Teichmann and Toku also emphasize this in equal measure. In Mariendorf, however, the same motivation is behind it. Going back to the fourth division should be avoided at all costs, because the club and coach come from exactly that. For Viktoria, relegation would be a major setback in development. Laboriously built structures would have to be broken up again, thinks Teichmann. “The club then has to stabilize again first.” The financial gap between the 3rd division and the regional division is simply too big. The team would also feel that, which in the event of relegation would then have to draw on more of Viktoria’s good youth work. Both the U19 and U17 play in the Bundesliga.
Farat Toku knows the regional league well. Until October 2019 he was coach of SG Wattenscheid for almost four years. He used the time after that for further training, and he has been a football coach since May 2021. For him, Viktoria Berlin is his first chance in professional football. He wants to use them. The task is always complicated. And in Mariendorf, people are actually a bit grateful for the quiet at the moment. Before his first game, Toku seeks even more seclusion. After a two-day short training camp, Viktoria wants to celebrate her first win since December in Havelse on Monday.
