Bye professional football?
MSV Duisburg falls towards the “Schweineliga”
April 12, 2024, 9:55 p.m
MSV Duisburg is threatened with falling into the regional league. The founding member of the Bundesliga missed out on a much-needed home win in a draw against relegation rivals Waldhof Mannheim and is seven points behind the first non-relegation place. This could increase on matchday 33.
Even many minutes after the final whistle, numerous MSV Duisburg fans were still sitting in the stands of the deeply sad Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena, trying to understand what had become increasingly likely that late Friday evening. The founding member of the Bundesliga is threatening to fall into the Regionalliga at the end of this season and thus say goodbye to professional football (for the time being). After 90 intense and passionate third division minutes in front of over 16,000 spectators, the Zebras shared the points with direct relegation rivals Waldhof Mannheim (1:1). Too little to hope for big. Too much to check off.
Everything is still mathematically possible. But the sober numbers – the gap to the saving shore is now seven points (if Arminia Bielefeld should score at home against the unpopular MSV district rivals Rot-Weiss Essen on Sunday, it would be eight points) – met with great emotions after the final whistle. And they looked like farewell. The players lay exhausted on the lawn, some alone. Fans comforted each other in the stands, some wiping tears from their eyes. An era in German professional football will probably end in a few weeks. Of course, this doesn’t come out of nowhere. The club has been fighting against decline for years, both sportingly and financially. All the holes in the hull were always plugged in some way. Until now.
If the barge were actually kept afloat again, it would be a gigantic football miracle. At least four of the remaining five games must be won. A herculean task for a team that has only celebrated seven successes in the three-point range all season. But giving up before nothing works mathematically, that doesn’t happen on the Wedau. And so they were still looking for the positive on Friday evening.
“We deserved more”
“It hurts brutally. I think we deserved more than one point. We were clearly the better team. In the end, Mannheim turned one and a half chances into a goal. We have one point,” said playmaker Thomas Pledl at Magenta and emphasized: “It’s a bit too little, everything is mathematically possible. But we know that everything has to work out for us in five games. But I think you’ve seen that we believe in ourselves, that we can do it “It’s a shame we couldn’t reward ourselves.”
Coach Boris Schommers, who gathered his players in the center circle after the final whistle and swore in once again, praised the performance of his footballers, who fought until they dropped and took the lead with a curious own goal from Mannheim’s Terrence Boyd (32nd). The Duisburg team failed to add another goal. Our own passivity in the forward game was punished; again it was the “wrong” man who scored. MSV defender Tobias Fleckstein unfortunately deflected a shot into his own goal. The previously strong keeper Maximilian Braune was powerless. The people of Duisburg rebelled again, but without luck or success. A symbol: substitute Daniel Ginczek. The former Bundesliga striker had come as a beacon of hope in the winter, but now once again looked hectic and clumsy.
“We are all very disappointed. You could see from the first minute that we found playful solutions in the pressure situations, but we should have taken the lead earlier,” said Schommers according to “Reviersport” and was very unhappy with the fact that his team was lagging behind didn’t continue after the break like it did in the first 45 minutes. “In the end it was a bit too much of a crowbar. We had to open up and win the game at all costs, which unfortunately we weren’t able to do at the back.” Nevertheless, he draws hope from the performance in order to somehow make the actually impossible thing, staying in the league, possible on the home stretch.
Direct resurgence has already been announced
The Mannheimers fought for a point of morale, the 14th from the last seven games. They are not out of the woods yet either, but they have taken another important step towards staying in the league and have kept their competitors at bay. He can now intensify his planning for the regional league. This scenario was discussed and outlined at the club’s annual general meeting on Wednesday evening. Despite the sharp decline in income from TV money, in the event of relegation there should at most be a victory lap in the “pig league”, in which the great Rot-Weiss Essen, for example, was desperately stuck for over a decade.
The Regionalliga West is a bottleneck. Only one team comes up. With many other ambitious and large traditional clubs such as Rot-Weiß Oberhausen or Wuppertaler SV, this can end bitterly at any time. “We still have the right to be promoted immediately if we are relegated,” said President Ingo Wald at the meeting. This could possibly be achieved by founding a cooperative that would be part of the association provides fresh money as a loan.
Now the thing about the Wedau is that they are used to suffering. The club has been going steadily downhill for years, including small interim highs. But the great days of the club from the working-class town on the Rhine and Ruhr are over. In the 70s, 80s and even 90s you could watch international football here. In 1979, MSV reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, but lost to Borussia Mönchengladbach. Another highlight of the club’s history: the 1998 cup final, which was lost in dramatic fashion against FC Bayern (1:2), but at least led to the European cup winners’ competition. Now the path continues in a different direction, towards West German fourth class.