“We’re calling it the Jahrhundertspiel,” Kai Brünker says over the cellphone from Saarbrücken. “The sport of the century. A giant sport, a derby, and it’s in a cup semi‑last. Everyone is talking about it. You go to the bakery, individuals are talking about it. You go into the town, you go for a stroll, and individuals are saying: ‘It’s a must to win in opposition to ’Slautern!’”
For the Saarbrücken coach, Rüdiger Ziehl, the reminder that that is no odd week comes with the fixed pinging of his cellphone from pals and informal acquaintances pestering him for a ticket. On Tuesday night time the third-division aspect from the very west of Germany, pinned proper up in opposition to the French border, will write the subsequent chapter in one of the vital exceptional tales anyplace in European soccer this season.
The continent rejoiced in unison when Saarbrücken knocked out Bayern Munich within the second spherical of the DFB-Pokal in November. However just about no one anticipated what occurred subsequent: a 2-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt within the final 16, earlier than Borussia Mönchengladbach were beaten by a 93rd-minute winner from Brünker this month.
Now comes a semi-final in opposition to their bitter native rivals Kaiserslautern. In Might, one among them will turn out to be the primary non-Bundesliga group to succeed in the cup last since 2011. Saarbrücken, for his or her half, would turn out to be the primary third-tier group to get there since unfancied Union Berlin made the ultimate of their house metropolis in 2001.
“You may’t clarify it,” Ziehl says of a fairytale run that started all the best way again in August with a 2-1 win over second-tier Karlsruhe. “To this second, no one can imagine it. Bayern Munich, then Frankfurt, then Gladbach? Usually you don’t have an opportunity.”
Saarbrücken’s house stadium holds solely 16,000 followers, however what it lacks in numbers it makes up in hostility. “Actual hell is blue and black,” the followers prefer to say, and in a contest the place the lowest-ranked golf equipment are mechanically granted house benefit, the fiery ambiance on the Ludwigsparkstadion has turn out to be a sort of protagonist in its personal proper.
“It’s a giant a part of this story,” Ziehl says. “You are feeling it whenever you come to the stadium. Greater than a traditional league sport. The stadium is full one and a half hours earlier than. If you heat up, it’s a very totally different ambiance. Throughout the sport, each duel you win, each good motion, they’re celebrating.”
That Saarbrücken have been in a position to reproduce their white-hot cup type solely fleetingly within the Dritte Liga, the place they’re tenth and properly out of the promotion race, is much less shocking whenever you have a look at their squad: a combination of kids who by no means fairly made it on the high degree and skilled journeymen such because the centre-forward Brünker, who in England is probably finest recognized for a one-year spell at Bradford Metropolis that may charitably be described as combined.
“It was a extremely intense time,” Brünker says of a spell that produced 31 appearances and a single aim, in opposition to Oldham within the Checkatrade Trophy. “In a soccer sense, I wasn’t the scoring machine that Bradford hoped I’d be. However I had a very nice time and I had this sense of connection to the Bradford followers. I simply needed to present 100% for them.”
He nonetheless watches all their video games and after the tape is turned off spends a number of minutes singing the praises of Andy Cook dinner, who he hopes can hearth them to League Two promotion this season.
However it took Saarbrücken, and the cautious tutelage of Ziehl, to get him again on course and rebuild his confidence. “He trusts me,” says Brünker. “It’s a must to get that belief from the supervisor. Even when the ball isn’t rolling for you, you can also make it higher together with your mentality. If you defend properly, whenever you keep compact, whenever you shut the room for the opponent.”
The 29-year-old performs on the vanguard of a hardworking 3-4-3, with the emphasis – no less than in opposition to greater groups – on closing down area and springing counterattacks. Requested to outline his teaching philosophy, Ziehl prefers to precise it by way of values. “That you’re a group on the pitch,” he says. “That the defence desires to have the ball, not simply combat. That the strikers additionally must defend.”
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And although it’s greater than three a long time since Saarbrücken breathed the skinny air of the Bundesliga, it is a proud footballing area with a wealthy heritage. The Saarland even had its personal worldwide group within the Fifties, as France tried and failed to stop the area from being absorbed again into Germany after the second world conflict.
“It’s not an enormous metropolis however we’ve many, many followers,” Ziehl says. “And with these video games in opposition to the massive golf equipment in Germany, we’ve a brand new feeling within the metropolis once more, like what the sensation was years in the past. You are feeling you’re a part of the ‘massive soccer’.”
It’s the first time within the historical past of the DFB-Pokal that just one Bundesliga group has made it to the semi-finals. (Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen face Fortuna Düsseldorf in Wednesday’s second semi-final.) And given the debates swirling round European soccer about aggressive stability and the rising hole between the richest and the poorest, this yr’s competitors looks like its personal quiet act of insurrection: a reminder that nonetheless stacked the chances, nonetheless unlevel the taking part in discipline, there are nonetheless fleeting moments when true sporting ingenuity finds a approach.
“The hole is massive, and getting greater,” says Ziehl. “However the Pokal in its historical past has proven that groups from the second or third league can win. David in opposition to Goliath. And whenever you’re so near the ultimate, you consider it for certain. It’s so shut. Everyone’s dreaming.”
