Out came the sunshine…

… and dried up all the rain. And 1.FC Nuremberg moved (slightly) up the Bundesliga table again.*

The book about being an English supporter of 1.FCN, For Better Or For Wurst, is due to released in its German language version in early 2012. There is an additional chapter which manages to put the last three and half seasons into a handful of pages – an absolute neccesity as it would have been almost impossible to cover 2008-11 in as much detail as 2005-08 without the risk of further repetition. There are only so many ways to say that a load of fans flew to Germany, ate lots of sausages and drank vast quanitities of beer, witnessed another Glubb defeat, flew home and repeated it all again a couple of months later.

In a slight expansion on the previous two sentences, a comparision is drawn between 1.FCN and the English weather. When everything is set fair, and everyone is basking in the glory of it all, a storm appears from nowhere and devastates every last remnant of a joyous summer. When, on the other hand, all hope of any brightness is all but lost and the days are dark, wet and cold, something akin to a miracle occurs, bringing sunshine and hope that the darkest days have passed.

And so it was in Leverkusen as Glubb recorded a miraculous 3-0 victory over Bayer 04. The awfulness of the previous few weeks of heavy away defeats, lack of goals scored, deluge of goals conceded, suspensions, injuries and generally poor performances could be forgotten as the Bundesliga paused for the winter break – Nuremberg had bounced back, at least a little bit.

A look at the league table provides the most telling analysis of what went wrong during the first 17 games, namely that 1.FCN did not win enough games because they didn’t score enough, and conceded too many, goals. Deeper reasons, and these are purely personal opinions, are that inexperience of some of the players, a lack of passion, and a lack of an alternative plan prevented the team from building on what was a steady enough start to the season.

While I would not criticise the management/coaching set-up at Glubb, with Martin Bader and Dieter Hecking making the most of the difficult situation of competing against teams with far greater financial resources than Nuremberg, it does sometimes seem that there is an unwillingness to make big changes to the team and the formation. Of course, it can also be argued that under Michael Oenning, far too many changes were made far too regularly, unsettling the players and leading to ultimate demise. The inexperience of the younger players is often refreshing when things are going well, but it is reasonable to question whether they all have yet developed the required reslience when faced with more difficult periods. I do not presume to know what is going on in the heads of players either, but watching each game does lead me to question whether there is often enough ‘fire-in-the-belly’. For example, although I would never condone players arguing with the officials, there have been plenty of occasions on which I would have liked to have see Tomas Pekhart at least throw his arms up in despair when flagged offside. I’m sure he is gutted to see the assistant referee raise his flag, but a demonstration of this would at least place a little doubt in the mind of the official, making him look even more closely the next time.

Questioning the loyalty of the players to Glubb is a little unfair from someone sitting in front of a live stream of a game several hundred miles away, and I’m generally convinced that they all want the best for 1.FCN, but it is surely not just coincidence that against Leverkusen there was the sort of passion always shown by Raphael Schaefer from all of the players. Marvin Plattenhardt was a revelation, Daniel Didavi played like his life depended on it, as did Jens Hegler and Christian Eigler. And when in the first few moments of the match, Pekhart failed to connect with a cross into the box, he looked angry and I’m sure he even beat the floor with his fist. From the start of the game there was a commitment and a passion not truly seen for several months. Even without some frailties in the Leverkusen defence and attack , Nuremberg would have been victorious.

One win alone will not ensure that Glubb stay in the Bundesliga but when the second half of the season begins in late January, there will be nobody who can doubt that 1.FCN have got what it takes to climb away from the dangerzone. Several more shows of collective passion, fearlessness and belief will once again have people sitting-up and taking notice of a team which has the ability to not only firmly establish itself in the Bundesliga, but also win many friends among advocates of the truly beautiful game. It would be testimony to the work of Bader and Hecking if Glubb can repeat yesterday’s performance with enough regularity to survive in the German top flight. January can not come soon enough!

 

*With huge apologies to Incy Wincy spider, and the author of the English nursery rhyme.

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