Dejan Gone

TeBe and Dejan decided to go their separate ways today. Report in German on the official site. Like I said in my last report, it was the right decision, possibly just at the right time to try to salvage something from this season. I'm not going to dissect his shortcomings, again, that was done the last time round. Instead, my best and worst from his almost 2-year reign:


HIGH POINTS

1. The Berlin Cup win in extra time 2006 against Hertha amateurs. Dramatic comeback, dramatic late victory, a team that looked to be going places.
2. The 3-1 away win at Babelsberg last October. Stuffing our big nearest rivals, playing good football, coping with the pressure, it looked to be a turning point in our fortunes.

LOW POINTS

1. Dejan's comments immediately after that away game, when he called us 'the best team in the league'. We clearly weren't, seeing as that win still left us 5 behind B03 at that stage, and the 2 dire draws follwing the game proved the folly of Dejan's foolish boast.
2. The 5-2 away defeat against BAK at the end of last season, what DBA called "a massacre", "the worst second half of football played by a team that he'd ever seen".
3. Both season starts under his stewardship, leaving us effectively out of the running by mid-September. Even Butlins' season lasts till October.


Thanks Dejan, and good luck for the future, but it was time for both of us to move on. Who next? No idea.

TeBe 0:1 BFC - Time to go, Dejan...

Mommse, 7th September 2007

Team: Greil - Avcioglu, Ergirdi, Gottlieb (89. Eckl), Keyser, Petrowsky, Savran, Scholl (70. Kadow), Steinhauf (55. Steinhage), Wanski, Yilmaz.

Attendance: 1460 (not bad, esp considering the 18.00 Friday kick-off)

This really was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Drawing 0-0 with Schoeneiche last weekend was embarrassing enough, but losing 1-0 at home to a team that played the last half-hour with 10 men, leaving us with 4 points from 5 games against supposedly 'weak' opposition, sealed it for me. Something HAS to change, on a sporting level, things cannot go on like this.

Even Mr. 'Glass is half-full' Norbert has given up, all in the space of 2 weeks. From this:

But one has to confess, that the fighting spirit of TeBe - especially after the equalizer have been scored - was alive and kickin´.

The hope is still there. Be more optimistic Mr. Hancot! It´s not over yet! Well, o.k. - "yet"...

Fact is: the next two matches - away vs Germania "defense" Schoeneiche and home vs BFC Dynamo - will be very crucial and give us the direction of TeBe in the months to come.

I shall wait until the fifth matchday before I´m going to state an analysis on the Lila-Kanal and before I´m going to give you an answer whats in the nasty, half empty glass inside.

Till then - always hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

To this:

No more reports on the last two matches?

Well done.

There is nothing much to report about anyway.

Draw to Germania Schöneiche. Defeat to BFC Dynamo. Last one was really nasty.

There is nuffin. No play. No real football. No good defense. No efficient Midfield. No passionate offense. Nuffin.

On the terraces we did our best. But its very hard, when there is no response at all on the pitch...

The coach is to be fired.

Maybe half of the team (at least) is to be sacked also...

The glass is not half empty. Currently there is not even one drop in it...

Maybe I exagerrated my disappointments, but - you know - one can hardly be objective, when you´re team is losing like this ...

To give you some idea of the reaction among TeBe fans in Berlin having to witness this embarrassment, I've translated a few posts, apologies for the poor translations, but thanks to Endi for his (angry) thoughts:

To all of you that haven't grasped it yet:

Only the first THREE qualify for the new 3-way Regional League, where we could play against Braunschweig etc. The rest (ie us) will then play effectively in the 5th Division, in the Oberliga. We plummeted to the 4th division for the first time a few years ago, and soon we'll be even lower. To all of you who say it's not over yet: who exactly ARE we going to win against, if we can't beat rotten teams like Schoeneiche and BFC?

In the first half, it was quite ok, like in Schoeneiche. But then? We've a man more, and you couldn't even notice it, not at ALL. The only one showing anything like fighting spirit (like in Schoeneiche) was Petrowsky. No chances, no fight, nothing. If they don't know how important it is to win against direct opponents (and, by some distance, the most unpleasant club in the league) in the fight for qualification, then I don't know anymore. [a propos BFC fans] How often do we have to watch this cheering mass of idiots and PM and consorts in he Casino afterwards playing Bertie Big Bollocks? And whoever claps that team (with the exception of Greil) after that performance is beyond help.

The only positive is that the Division 2 Treasure AG definitely won't be seen in Division 5.

With regard to our footballing deficiencies, Mr. TeBe, Bungle, writes:

[In contrast to Babelsberg, who have shown an ever-increasing improvement in their football, and a fight-to-the-death spirit], With us, we play at a snail's pace, no movement in the game, inexplicable runs into nothing. It is shocking to see how badly the wheels have come off within the space of a few years, even if our 2-1 in the pre-season made us believe we were capable of something more.

At the moment things look very bleak. The team, in its current state, is nowehere near ready to challenge for promotion. On the contrary, our goal looks more and more unreachable with every game.

And more, this time thanks to Kelte for pointing out tactical deficiencies:

Once again, I only saw the one thing:

Eleven players, who more or less harmlessly and planlessly (re-)acted against a team who played better with 10 men than with 11.

System/Tactics = non-existent
Effectiveness = no sign of it
Attitude = apparent only in a few
Discipline = non-existent
Strength of game = enough for Oberliga also-rans. At best.

I can't help thinking of the film "Groundhog Day", everything has repeated itself again, but at least that was a fiction; with TeBe,it appears that learning from one's mistakes is also a fiction, except that we see the reality of it on a weekly basis before our very eyes...

What more can I say? Truly, once again, I thank my lucky stars that I'm not in Berlin this year, Linfield might be playing poorly, but they aren't an embarrassment like this current TeBe 1st team is. You could argue, possibly with justification, that TeBe has reached its true level, the support has dwindled, the money isn't really there anymore, that our expectations are just too high. But TeBe is a 'Traditionsverein', with a rich history and, at the moment, probably have the 3rd most-expensive squad in the league. That we are losing, in a clueless and predictable fashion, against Mickey Mouse teams and clubs is a singular embarrassment.

And I'm afraid that, in my book, the trainer has to shoulder the blame for this. If you read back through the archive of this blog, Dejan's tactical competence has been questioned at regular intervals, but I mostly let him off, especially at the end of last season, when we had to resort to playing goalkeepers outfield. But this team has shown no improvement at all despite the stability at the top of the hierarchy, in fact we've gone backwards. Like Kelte said, certain themes keep re-emerging time and again:

1. Shocking starts to the season that leave us with too much to do, meaning that the mid-season rallies are too little, too late.
2. An inability to win the bread-and-butter games against so-called 'weaker' opposition (and perversely, the ability to raise our game in the 'big' games, see both SVB03 games last season). This speaks volumes about the lack of willingness for the fight among our players, but also leaves accusations pointed at the manager about lack of motivation.
3. Our inability to play a quick incisive passing game. Our hoofball tactics against Oberliga also-rans. Our over-reliance on Savran. Playing Kadow again. (I would even say getting Gottlieb back in). Getting overrun down the flanks. Quite frankly, our tactics and system seem to be non-existent.
4. The amount of times we play poorly in the second half, and concede late goals. Thsi surely points to a lack of fitness, so the training must be lacking. It also points to a lack of bottle among the players.

I could go on, but it would depress me too much. My patience has run out with Dejan Raickovic. Really nice guy, A TeBe legend, but he can't cut it as an OL trainer, in my opinion. We need to act NOW to save something from this season. Dejan's now screwed up 2 potential title-winning bids. No doubt many players need to be moved on, but until this happens, we need a new trainer who can get the most out of those players there now, until the next transfer window opens.

It's times like these that an Exile's life can have its rewards.