TeBe 1:1 BAK 07

Friday 3rd November 2006, Mommenstadion

Team: Greil - Schalle, Thiam, Perez - Weidner, Scholl (68. Lemcke), Thomson (58. Eckl), Nwankwo, Griesert - Savran (62. Kadow), Fuß.

Goalscorer: Fuss (39)

Attendance: 433

Another day, another draw, our 3rd in a row. That makes it 8 games unbeaten but when you've drawn 4 of those that you should have won, then you know something's not right. To be honest, as most people know, as a 'glass is half-empty' man, I'd written the season off already anyway, so went into the game very relaxed, but the increased crowd, and a big pleasing turnout of the old familiar faces suggested to me that many thought this the last throw of the dice. Not to be.

I thought we actually played pretty well, to be honest. It really was the proverbial game of two halves. We were good in the first half, poor in the second. A draw was a fair result, with a wee bit of luck we could have won, but Greil did made one or 2 great saves to rescue the point at the same time.

It was a ball-freezing night, so I had the long johns, 4 layers and everything on. Good crowd at the S-Bahn station for the drinking 'warm-up' and people were in good spirits. Big piece of team news was that Ryan Thomson was back in the starting eleven after a while out injured, I'd have brought my Canada flag if I'd have known! He went on to have an impressive game, full of energy and bustle, only being brought off early into the second half when he ran out of steam. Other plus point was the inclusion of Micha Fuss, who seemed to be back to something approaching his hungry skilful best: more supply this time meant more danger, and his goal was a belter, cutting inside and blasting it past the keeper after a super through-ball from Thomson(?). Nwankwo, in only his 2nd game back, impressed too.

But then TeBe metaphorically failed to reappear for the 2nd half. BAK applied all the pressure, we seemed to resort to long balls, to sit back and defend the lead, we continually neglected to cover ex-TeBeler Tuerkkan on the right touchline (despite exortion from the crowd, esp Alex!) and sure enough, given plenty of space in the right area, he supplied the perfect cross for Guenes to equalise from 6 yards out. And that was pretty much that, we attacked with a little more gusto in search of the winner, but with no real conviction.

So the two "gummi bear teams" (thus described by a local football paper because of their lofty ambitions and their failure to match these in reality) cancelled each other out and ended any hope of promotion. The fans were in fine voice last night despite the weather, and the Casino was packed afterwards with fans wanting to warm themselves up. Song of the night, which deserves to be sung repeatedly till the end of the season, was an altered version of another TeBe song:

"We believe in Santa Claus, we believe in the tooth fairy,
We believe that we will get promoted again one day"

Some believe that we should wait till the Winter break before taking stock and making changes. I don't know. It's too late for this season now, Babelsberg are 11 points clear and we won't catch them, simple as. But changes must be made. We shouted loud and proud that promotion was our aim at the start of the seasaon, and we're MILES off that. The role of the Maschke brothers continues to be a bone of contention for fans, and I'm afraid Dejan's performance has to looked upon critically, nice guy or not. The team has lacked passion, conviction, and should simply be doing better with the players we have at our disposal. Babelsberg are having an exceptinal season, they deserve to go up and I'd be happy with 2nd place in such a season; what has annoyed has been our abject performances aganst teams we should stuff easily. Schoenberg. Neustrelitz. Dynamo. We should have at least 6 points more, that is what I would consider a fair stab at promotion. We haven't done that, and it's up to those in charge of TeBe to decide whose fault that is.