The marten that rushed across the field in fear shortly before kick-off, looking for a way out of all these people, had eventually made it. Nobody seemed to know where his loophole was. The Lions, in turn, experienced a similarly hopeless situation on Saturday afternoon: These opponents all the time! There seemed to be no escape.
Munich’s third division game often looked more like escapism than football. But in the end they went home with a point, and no one really knew why. Patrick Hobsch at least had an explanation for the loophole: “As a striker, you know that defenders often have their legs open,” he said, analyzing the scene that led to his goal at Magentasport. His tunnel through the opponent’s legs gave TSV 1860 Munich a 1-1 draw at Alemannia Aachen. Sixty has already achieved well-deserved victories and experienced equally well-deserved and annoying defeats. A point from the “happy” category is a relatively new experience in the current season. There were many draws on this afternoon in the third division, which the attacker then commented: “Ha, then again no one can make any progress.”
Alemannia against Sixty – a big game, because of a great past. There was so much euphoria in the imperial city that the Tivoli was sold out with over 31,500 spectators for the first time in a long time – also due to the charisma of the club from Giesing. The anticipation among the approximately 4,000 Lions fans who had traveled with them to finally experience a game again with the traditional newcomers may have meant that this Saturday remained comparatively apolitical by sixty standards. The division within the club was only discussed briefly.
As is so often the case, even away from home, the so-called sheik song could be heard, a banner against the Jordanian 1860 investor could also be seen, as well as an expression of love for the Grünwalder Stadium. But all of that was strange again, because you couldn’t hear and see it in the visitors’ stand, but in the Aachen block. There was obviously an agreement between the active fan scenes. Ultra groups across the country in particular are fundamentally opposed to investor models.
“The game,” said Aachen coach Heiner Backhaus, “must be decided after 30 minutes.”
Basically, the lions standing on the pitch were the only ones who remained strangely far from any euphoria in this full stadium for a long time. The Giannikis team played completely uninspired in the first half, with sloppy passes and runs into no man’s land. “We had huge problems in the first half,” admitted Hobsch, who, somewhat surprisingly, was still on the bench at the time and later came into the game as a joker. Coach Argirios Giannikis explained afterwards that his team simply couldn’t cope with the Aachen Pressing, which seems to be a similar specialty to the Aachen Printen – especially since Printen means something like “tool for pressing”.
In any case, Sixty couldn’t withstand the pressure for long, even if the 1-0 result was unfortunate. Bentley Baxter Bahn scored in the eleventh minute of the game with a penalty kick that he took himself. However, Sixty’s Soichiro Kozuki’s foul could also have been placed in front of the 16-meter line. With this safely converted penalty, the goalless phase of Marco Hiller, who had only recently been re-appointed as the starting goalkeeper, ended – after exactly 100 minutes of play. The fact that he kept the box clean from then on out of the game was a guarantee that he would later win points. The 27-year-old made a remarkable clearance several times, for example with a free kick immediately before the half-time whistle. He won three times in one-on-one situations, including against former sixty player Kevin Goden (83′).
In the 14 games before that, Alemannia had only scored 13 goals, and this harmlessness continued towards sixty. “The game,” said Aachen coach Heiner Backhaus, “must be decided after 30 minutes.” It took the Munich team a very long time before they could outplay the Aachen team; it was only after 41 minutes that Julian Guttau fired anything like a shot on goal. Then at least Giannikis’ plan B worked: with several substitutions, the coach increased their physical presence on the field, the Lions fought their way into the game and became more courageous. Hobsch then scored the late equalizer after a pass from Maximilian Wolfram (87th).
Although things didn’t really progress for anyone because of the many draws, the Lions moved up the table a little bit. However, the team has not recommended itself for higher tasks at all, and so it is as usual before next Saturday’s home game against Hansa Rostock: with a win, dreams of promotion rise to the sky again, with a defeat, fears of relegation.
