When Miroslav Klose appeared at the press conference after the game, he no longer had anything to fear. There were no objections, no one corrected him, not even the video assistant spoke up. There was nothing to complain about in the analysis that the coach of 1. FC Nürnberg presented on Sunday afternoon after the 2-2 draw against Fortuna Düsseldorf. Klose, 46, praised his team for “a very dominant first half” and blamed them for the second: “We were no longer sharp enough.”
A judgment that apparently gave even the video assistant no reason to veto it. During the game he switched on three times in just over ten minutes. Only when Düsseldorf’s Matthias Zimmermann touched the ball with his hand in the penalty area. Then, when Julian Justvan missed the following penalty, Fortuna’s goalkeeper Florian Kastenmeier left the line too early. And finally, when Nuremberg’s Oliver Villadsen also caused a penalty through a foul on the other side.
Penalty here, penalty there: The video assistant’s interventions shaped a game that the club could have decided long ago before the referee was overruled again and again. And so the game ended up fitting seamlessly into the past few weeks in Nuremberg.
That was the topic recently: As exhilarating as the club often played in November, it almost disappeared that the victories fell by the wayside. The rousing performances almost covered up the flattening results – although it is often the other way around. Victories obscure what is wrong in football terms, but Nuremberg’s recent play was no longer just heartwarming, but also heartbreaking, because with all the nice moves, fewer and fewer points were achieved.
“It’s a shame, a shame, a shame,” said Ondrej Karafiat on Sunday and complained about “the same thing as against Kaiserslautern, Hamburg and Paderborn”. For Nuremberg’s defenders it was clear: “We should have led 3-0 in the first half.” But the club didn’t do that, although Klose had made it clear before the game: “We play football to get results.” Because that was in the However, it was no longer possible in the last few weeks, “the performance is more or less irrelevant”. But the performance did have one effect: the people who support the club could hardly blame their team for anything. Should they begrudge this exciting team the 1-1 draw in Hamburg? Was it really appropriate to criticize them for the 1-1 draw against Kaiserslautern? And had she not done enough in the 2-3 loss in Paderborn to at least draw there?
“We let ourselves be dragged through the ring,” says Düsseldorf coach Thioune
Against this background, the goal against Düsseldorf was to bring performance and result back into line. A task that the Nuremberg team fulfilled in such an impressive manner in the first half that Düsseldorf coach Daniel Thioune later admitted: “We let ourselves be dragged through the ring.”
In the first quarter of an hour alone, the club not only created a great chance for Mahir Emreli, but also five of its twelve corners. The last of these five corners led to 1-0 by Finn Jeltsch, and because it was later Stefanos Tzimas who made it 2-1 six minutes before the end of regular time, the club gave up, as in previous weeks Fortuna offers a glimpse into the future. In the person of his two goal scorers, he opened the door a crack, and anyone who peered in could see how it shone and sparkled and radiated. Where does what the FCN is currently delivering lead? What will happen to the club once these exciting young players are older, more mature and – it’s hard to imagine – even better?
This question brings us to the problem that goes hand in hand with the flourishing playful present: This future, which the club has pointed towards in recent weeks, may not even exist. The big clubs are already keeping an eye on Jeltsch and Tzimas. And it is at least doubtful whether the club, which relies on revenue, can actually resist the temptations when the offers come flooding in.
But that wasn’t what this afternoon was about. The 90 minutes were too turbulent, and the role Justvan took on was too tragic. First he missed twice within a few moments when he went for the penalty – and then the DFL attributed Düsseldorf’s late 2-2 draw to him as an own goal. Not even the video assistant could help him.
