It has now gotten to the point at 1. FC Nürnberg that Tomas Galasek and Marek Mintal are watching you eat. In the so-called mixed zone of the Max Morlock Stadium, where the players have always met the reporters in recent years, it is no longer just footballers and journalists who come together, but also bratwursts, mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. The club now feeds the media representatives right at the place where they also talk to the players after the games – and there are pictures of Galasek and Mintal hanging on the walls opposite the food bowls.
So a lot has changed at FCN – also and especially on the pitch. The club from the first weeks of the season and the current club, it’s a difference like night and day. But it should be emphasized that it is the same team that plays football in the Max Morlock Stadium. The fact that this team is now so impressive and remained unbeaten for the fifth time in a row in the 0-0 draw against 1. FC Kaiserslautern on Friday evening is just a testament to the progress that the young players have made in the last few weeks.
Miroslav Klose, 46, has not yet made it to the point where he can watch someone eat as a Nuremberg coach, but he can take credit for the formidable upswing that his team has made.
The FCN has undergone a transformation that is almost as high as the one that turned Saul into Paul. The before club, which often looked a bit unhappy in the pictures from the first weeks of the season, suddenly looks a bit different after a few changes. After a makeover, the after club suddenly looks brilliant. He smiles and beams, he is beautiful and, to put it in football terms: one of the most exciting teams in the entire second Bundesliga.
“The leaders run into the right spaces, the six-man space is occupied, we push in the remaining defense, we are clever – everything is getting better, and I like that,” said Klose on Friday evening after the game against FCK. The club where it all started for him. This is where he grew up, this is where he entered the Bundesliga stage, and this is where he took the first steps of his world career.
First flawed, now heartwarming to exhilarating: This is the preliminary summary of the Nuremberg season
When Klose met Kaiserslautern for the first time as a coach, he was faced by Markus beginning, one of his team-mates at the time, with whom he not only fought side by side for the Palatinate team in the 2003 DFB Cup final, but also in 28 other games. Then they parted ways before crossing again on Friday.
Before the game, Klose had said that friends and family would fill “half a block” – afterwards both the FCK and FCN fans from Klose’s camp were able to go home at least somewhat satisfied. If there was one team that had to mourn the draw, it was the Nuremberg team, who were once again bursting with joy and played refreshing offensive football, only they didn’t hit the goal.
The club is now increasingly going through the opposing defenses like a knife through butter. Although: Butter is probably a little harder to get down – the people of Nuremberg now make it look so easy when they play football.
When Klose now says that the main thing for his team during the upcoming international break is to “get a certain level of security in front of the goal,” what that means is that a lot of things are going very well now.
By the way, Klose’s team didn’t even need a single minute on Friday evening to reduce their entire season to just two scenes. First, captain Robin Knoche played the ball out of bounds immediately after kick-off, causing a collective sigh in the stands of the Max Morlock Stadium – then it was almost 1-0 for Nuremberg: just 40 seconds after Knoche’s lapse, Julian Justvan came into the penalty area to shoot and thus completed a wonderful move, but the ball was blocked.
It was symbolic. First flawed, now heartwarming to exhilarating: This is the preliminary summary of the Nuremberg season. Sequel follows.
