The Erding Gladiators are always good for a surprise.
Erding - That was the sensation of the seventh game day in the Oberliga gearing round: The Erding Gladiators won the only game of the weekend 5: 2 at the Höchstadt Alligators and underpinned the important sixth place in the table after half of the round.
The surprise was so great because the Höchstadter had won all three home games by then and Erdinger had lost all three away games. In addition, there was only 17-year-old Menno Bergmeister in the gladiators goal, who was last allowed to sniff a few minutes into the Bayernliga in Landsberg and now stood between the posts for the first time with the Alligators.
"Our goal was to keep the game tight and stand well for as long as possible, because we knew that Höchstadt had good single players and was strong in power play," said Erdings coach Thomas Vogl at the press conference. "We did very well in the first third, in the second Höchstadt took control more and more, but we went 1-1 with the second break."
The game-deciding factor for the Gladiators coach was the situation "when we could play long against five against three". In this phase, the gladiators had gone 4-1 and then played the game home quietly. "I'm very happy with how my boys implemented the tactics and how disciplined they behaved," said a beaming Vogl. "I'm overjoyed about the three points."
His vis-à-vis Martin Sekera, who had given up Mikhail Nemirovsky as a newcomer, was visibly pissed off because he had not been satisfied with his appearance recently. "I warned my team that every team that comes here plays defensively and with discipline," he said. "You have to decide such a game quickly, we did not succeed." In the second third, his team had the chances to do so, in the final third his team gave away the points due to their own stupidity and lack of discipline. "We were unable to score the goals, and the Erdinger goalkeeper was outstanding," Sekera concluded.
When asked, Vogl said that Bergmeister is a South Tyrolean and is therefore considered a foreigner. "He has been playing for the fourth year at EV Landshut, but this year he was the fourth and therefore surplus foreigner in the DNL, which is allowed to play with three foreigners." That is why the EVL "parked" him in Erding, so to speak. Bergmeister had played in the U 20 so far, but he pulled him up after Christoph Schedlbauer's injury. He has now trained for two weeks with the Bayernliga team. "I didn't know how strong he really was, because training is something other than play," said Vogl. "He was totally cool in goal for his 17 years and I'm brutally happy for the lad."
It is quite possible that Bergmeister will make his debut in front of the home crowd against Sonthofen on Friday. Then on Sunday it goes to the neighbor EHC Klostersee. An eminently important game in the fight for sixth place.
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