Home Neustrelitz.

Hindsight is a powerful thing. Who could have possibly weighed up the odds yesterday afternoon that after the match i might have actually preferred to have stayed in and watched Germany win or England lose? Yes after almost 9 months away from live football, I finally turned up to my first home game of the season - a previously postponed match against Neustrelitz given a second try last night. Freezing cold, a little snow and a rather empty stadiom was greeted with no goals and nothing really amazing or interesting to report.

Team: Hampf - Wanski, Below, Mohra - Schrödter, Petrowsky, Ergirdi, Aydin (53. Can) - Fuß, Kukulies (70. Kalkan), Savran
Referee: Klemm (Grönitz)- Öhme, Stahlmann
Crowd: 401
Bookings: Kukulies - Zelm, Mätschke, Duggert

How many season tickets some of the fans have bought now I do not know but it is the only way that i can explain the 401 apparent crowd that were there. The stand was almost empty and i guess that most of the OAPs are season ticket holders, there were a few from Neustrelitz there but I would have guessed more round the 300 mark. Tricky of course to say in freezing conditions as many would have been hiding in the toilets or the bar that little bit longer to keep warm.

But 400 would not be a bad guesstimate for the number of chances that TeBe made and then did not score from. The first 15 or 20 minutes was almost good - both teams playing some almost OK football and the tactical chess like start of a good game was starting to form. But after the aforementioned 20 minutes it seems that Neustrelitz couldn't be arsed after all and it was defence defence for them, playing a kind of 8-2-0 tactic all within their own half. The only murmurs from them came through counter attacks, their players reading bad passes from the TeBe midfield and running the counter with the aim of getting a free kick or a corner. I remember a few wide free kicks, the odd awful corner and 1 shot on goal. Credit should however go to Timo Hampf in goal once again for TeBe as it was balls freezing out there and despite having hardly anything to do he kept concentrated and kept a clean sheet. A lesser man may have decided "f**k this for a game of soldiers" and just gone home sometime during the second half - certainly a few of the fans did just that.

So with hundreds of chances and Neustrelitz reduced to weak counter attacks, why the hell did TeBe not get the 3 points? I really cannot answer that and this being my first game and also a surprise considering their recent form I cannot make any great judgments here. The first half was almost difficult compared to the second as by then Neustrelitz were hardly doing anything - it was literally just TeBe pressure and chances for large parts of the game. All in all though the standard of football was awful, Neustrelitz were more awful sure but it was all pretty bad. Most TeBe corners didnt deliver, those that got in the mixer were not well headed or brought under control, those that fell for longer range shots were either hit amazingly wide or passed back across due to presumed lack of confidence. TeBe had a few nice free kicks though, Fuss can still hit them, but nothing very dangerous for the keeper last night. The pressure built up and up and it seemed that Neustrelitz would have to crack eventually. I could say we needed 95 mins, perhaps 100 but to be honest, despite their apparent recent run of form, the strikers didn't look like they would score if we had kept playing for another few days. Some nice width using moves on the side rarely delivered a good cross and by the end there were so many players in the Neustrelitz area that everybody was falling over each other and nobody had any room to get a powerful on target shot in to trouble the keeper. As for the TeBe defence - well they played well at the back but I didn't really see anyone able to come up and cause trouble at corners or move forward and take a long range shot on target.

So the table looks like this now:

1 Hertha BSC II 17 14 2 1 41 : 7 34 44
2 Türkiyemspor Berlin 18 11 3 4 27 : 14 13 36
3 Optik Rathenow 18 10 5 3 25 : 15 10 35
4 FC Hansa Rostock II 17 10 4 3 44 : 17 27 34
5 Tennis Borussia 18 10 4 4 42 : 15 27 34
6 Greifswalder SV 04 18 10 3 5 37 : 19 18 33
7 BFC Dynamo 18 8 6 4 30 : 17 13 30
8 Lichterf. FC Berlin 1892 17 8 3 6 27 : 32 -5 27

Well the glass is half full or half empty I guess. 2 points off a second place is really nothing but with the retraction of Yesilyurt out of the league meaning no relegation this season and the redrawing of the tables next season anyways, there are only a few teams with any great interest in getting points, which is now making every point against the lower clubs essential and all the top matches crucial. TeBe have to be bitterly disappointed with this result, a loss of 2 points is the only way to see it. They lost to Neustrelitz at the beginning of the season in a run of fixtures that still might possibly cost them a spot in the top 3 and could quite literally mean the end of the club. Last night they made all the chances and despite a terrible performance, a stream of bad passes and stupid high balls again, they should have come away with the points as 1 goal was all they needed against an even worse Neustrelitz team. This means the big match at BFC Dynamo at the weekend is of course crucial - a loss for either teams could mean the end of either clubs, both legends in the tradition archives of German and European football. A draw is probably not enough for either team but a loss for BFC is certainly the end - a loss or a draw and TeBe could still do it but the numbers game is slipping away then. The BFC game was always going to be an important one but losing these 2 points last night will have only increased the pressure unnecessarily on the players.

Just as with the players, it is hard also to judge the state of the fans after such a prolonged absence. Despite the cold and the other matches on TV that night there was a reasonable turn out, a nice mix of old faces and even a few newer ones. I do feel like a bit of a traitor, sodding off for such a long time and it is true that TeBe has certainly lost a little something for me. The Neustrelitz 8-2-0 did not make for a beautiful game but apart from the odd nice move i was really unimpressed by TeBe and i hope that this was a bad day that will be put behind them. Some friendly pub league ice-hockey teams could probably scored a few of the chances against Neustrelitz last night - this really was not the best start to a renewal of my live football career after my time away. Andi P was of course missing, the beer and sausage stands have moved a bit around and Biber is back in his beer hut - otherwise things were very similar to usual. There was of course one other surprisingly minor difference: The Treasure AG advertising boards, which really could have been designed by anyone in 5 minutes who knows how to do circles on Windows Paint..... but enough of that today, I am depressed enough after that result without getting into other dark clouds.