With tactics and stability: How to achieve the three home points

The sixth minute. Many things went very well to excellently at SV 98 on this Friday evening. But a scene from the opponent appears quite deliberately in this section. Because it also showed that SV 98 had the luck that is necessary in football in a decisive situation, which is always part of a successful game. And this luck meant that the Lilies did not have to cope with an early blow in the form of a deficit. In the early stages, Nicolai Rapp headed a Wanitzek corner towards the goal, Marcel Schuhen was able to block the header with his body. And Marcel Franke hit the crossbar with the follow-up shot from close range.

As a result, the home team hardly let anything go wrong defensively. But the pendulum could have swung the other way after six minutes. Schuhen: „We were a little lucky at the beginning with the set piece. If KSC takes the lead there, it will probably be a different game. So we take the lead ourselves a little later, 1-0.“

Stability. After last weekend, much was written and talked about (and rightly so) how it was possible that the Lilies could concede four goals in the last half hour in Magdeburg after an excellent 60 minutes. Against Karlsruhe, on the other hand, coach Florian Kohfeldt’s team never let their opponents get into the game after the opening phase. The South Hesse team also repeatedly launched dangerous attacks. In the second half in particular, one or two brilliant saves by KSC goalkeeper Max Weiß prevented the score from getting even higher. „Our best man was the goalkeeper, which is rarely good when you’re 3-0 down,“ commented KSC coach Christian Eichner dryly. Kohfeldt saw a totally united, „very good team performance from almost every player“ and added: „Overall, it was really good and the play was very, very mature.“

The tactical approach. Much has to do with stability, but it should be mentioned separately here: The famous match plan worked perfectly on Friday evening. SV 98 was well prepared and prepared for the guests. Merveille Papela started the game with his own build-up between the central defenders so that Andreas Müller could move around more actively in midfield. Fraser Hornby, who can be found everywhere, acted in a playmaker role to force the sixes in Baden’s 3-5-2 system to make decisions. There were also clear attack patterns on both sides: on the right, the aim was to play the ball directly to Isac Lidberg, on the left, Killian Corredor was supposed to act more as a dropping player in order to take the overrunning Guille Bueno or their own midfielders with him.

After KSC started with three players towards the end of the first half, the Lilies changed, positioned the full-backs a little further back, Papela moved up and acted with Müller as a classic double six. „The game showed what we have been saying since the second half of the season in particular: we have to learn to be stable in this league, we also have to learn to play like adults,“ said a satisfied Lilien coach afterwards. Kohfeldt: „And that also means that the wish of every player and probably every coach to have the ball back after what feels like six seconds and to play through every press is not always possible. That won’t work because the risk is too high.“

The game was closed too late. There isn’t much to write about in this category. Defensively, they were wide awake, apart from the scene in the sixth minute, and the Lilies also created numerous chances going forward. 24 shots on goal to 7 speak for themselves. Yes, the game could have been decided earlier and the second half could have been completely relaxed. But when the score is 3-0, it’s hard to keep up, even with a lot of effort.