As a politician in a position of responsibility, observers would probably describe his style of leadership as “steady hand”. But Christian Neidhart is a football coach on a delicate mission in the service of the Offenbacher Kickers. Delicate because the team of the traditional club only finished eleventh at the end of the 23/24 season, Neidhart’s first year with the Kickers in the Regionalliga Südwest – behind the U23 of Frankfurter Eintracht, Barockstadt Fulda and FSV Frankfurt. Far below the expectations of the OFC’s customers.
Their patience, strained during twelve tough years in the fourth division without the ever-repeated hope of promotion, has finally come to an end. This can be measured by the fact that around 2,400 season tickets have currently been sold – at the same time a year ago there were over 3,000. The price to pay for a botched season that the club management would prefer to keep quiet about.
“We have noticed the reticence,” says Neidhart. This also applies to the six preparation games against amateurs in the region, especially last weekend at the premiere of the “Blitz Tournament” for the “Kickers Cup”; with Fortuna Düsseldorf and 1. FC Kaiserslautern as sparring partners of the OFC.
Seven days before the start of the league match this Saturday (2 p.m.), Neidhart hoped for a “successful dress rehearsal” with the U23s of SC Freiburg against established second division clubs and he got one: After two 30-minute periods each, the test ended 1:0 against Fortuna and 1:3 against the Palatinate team. In the stands, their supporters let it be known via stadium songs who was calling the shots among the 2300 spectators on the Bieberer Berg: “Without Lautern, there would be nothing going on here.” A gaping emptiness where the active Kickers scene usually has its regular place.
17 professionals from the previous season are no longer there
The description of the support that has persisted for decades from these central standing areas of the stadium on four pages of the hotly printed July issue of “11 Freunde”, the “magazine for football culture”, is like a eulogy. But for all hardcore fans, one thing applies across all clubs: summer tournaments are not their thing.
What counts on Saturday is the start of the next season on probation. 17 of last year’s squad, which was expanded to 32 professionals, are no longer there. “We have now brought a lot more mentality into the team,” stressed Kickers President Joachim Wagner in an interview with “Erwin,” the “Independent OFC Fan Magazine,” which has maintained a critical, incorruptible approach despite its commitment to the traditional club. “The preparation,” says the Erwin Crew’s editorial “Abschlag,” “once again provided tender emotional shoots in the Kickers’ soul.”
After the fresh impressions from the weekend, there are actually good reasons to have high hopes for the slimmed-down new squad. It has been rejuvenated, and six of the ten new arrivals come from the OFC youth team. In the “blitz tournament”, 21 players were used in different formations, which at times were on a par with the second division clubs. The new squad, unlike the previous one, was put together entirely by the current management with Christian Hock, Managing Director of Sport, and coach Neidhart.
There are therefore no more excuses if the minimum goal of “playing a good role and being at the top by the end of the season” is missed. For Kickers, this is a subtle challenge to the equally ambitious competition. Neidhart includes the second teams of the Bundesliga clubs, as well as Homburg, Freiberg, Fulda and the Kickers from Stuttgart.
The way the currently popular players performed in the tough tests against Düsseldorf and Kaiserslautern and a week earlier in the 1:3 defeat against 1. FC Cologne, the completely revamped ensemble presents itself as a stable unit. The most striking new addition so far? Midfielder Boubakar Barry, who once played in the U-19 national team with Leroy Sané and Timo Werner and who is now, nine years later, making a start in new surroundings after stints in Karlsruhe and Walldorf.
There are high fives, fists are clenched, compactness instead of hopeless chaos in the “games of horror”, of which there have been far too many in the past. The low point last April and anything but an April Fool’s joke: the 3:5 defeat against FC Homburg after leading 3:0. “The current team presents a completely different picture,” enthuses Neidhart, and even finds the good side in defeats, “so that not everyone around just looks up, the trees don’t grow to the sky.”
The word “promotion” is deliberately avoided. But, to be realistic, the Kickers are only able to operate economically if they move up to the second division. Quote from the president: “We have a second division stadium with a cost structure that is hardly manageable for a fourth division club. We have steward costs because of a security concept here that are higher than some budgets in the regional league.”
The average attendance of just under 6,000 spectators per game at the Bieberer Berg sounds as if the club could draw on all its resources – but not at all. Ticket sales cover at most 45 percent of the budget, so sources of money are needed to stay in the race for a promotion spot. A constantly new challenge for the entrepreneur Wagner with an old coach and a refreshed squad.
