While SpVgg Unterhaching has its back to the wall, the upholstery of the little Bavarians is also melting away.
How can the misery be explained and what would relegation mean?
Unterhaching / Munich
- SpVgg Unterhaching seems to be slowly but surely coming to terms with its fate.
The air is out, even the obligatory perseverance slogans seem half-hearted.
Whoever you ask, the regional league is being talked about more and more often.
Three points from the past ten games.
The next low point last weekend: The relegation duel against KFC Uerdingen was deservedly lost due to a desperate first half.
There are already eight points behind to the rescue bank.
With nine remaining games, SpVgg must hope for a medium football miracle.
FC Bayern II: can the negative trend be stopped?
It doesn't look that bleak for the Bayern amateurs.
Holger Seitz's team is still above the line, but the trend is steeply downwards - very steeply, in fact.
Three defeats in a row, just one win from the last eight games.
No comparison to the previous season, when the team went into a frenzy and won the title.
The ghost of relegation is no longer the abstract image that has been conjured up again and again after a series of negatives.
No - meanwhile it is very haunted.
While the Reds, after the upheaval and a number of departures, from the beginning declared relegation as their goal, Haching had to answer another question: Did they actually belong to the extended group of favorites in the 3rd division before the season - how often was it claimed?
It was well known that Schwabl and Co. had been toying with promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga for a long time.
SpVgg Unterhaching: Excessive self-overestimation or surprising crash?
So how did such a disastrous development come about?
With Arie van Lent, a new and ambitious man was brought to the sidelines and a rejuvenation process was initiated.
In the summer there were other veterans like Sascha Bigalke, Jim-Patrick Müller or Dominik Stroh-Engel, who stayed with the team.
A few weeks ago, the farce around Luca Marseiler and Felix Schröter caused further irritation.
Coach van Lent gave the two talented offensive forces a lesson and temporarily suspended them before they were back in the squad a little later.
Lots of question marks, lots of unrest.
Passing the buck on the coach would be wrong.
Gross misconduct cannot be seen from the outside, and the Dutchman is not responsible for the composition of the squad.
Van Lent has full support from Manni Schwabl despite the horror record.
Over and over again the president emphasizes the trust in the coaching team.
A change on the sidelines seems impossible.
Unless van Lent throws in the towel himself.
SpVgg Unterhaching lacks third division quality
The self-imposed Art Nouveau as Hachinger Weg is successful in principle - and with the limited financial resources also sustainable.
This season, Felix Göttlicher and Niclas Anspach, for example, stood out from the young and wild.
Many experienced players like Domink Stahl, Seppi Welzmüller or Stephan Hain were absent or have been injured for months
Another catastrophic second half and more stability should actually be prevented with the change from Claus Schromm to Arie van Lent.
But the changes were simply not enough to stop the trend - after a weak preliminary round, the downward trend followed in 2021 to the last place in the table.
FC Bayern II: from master to relegated?
The relegation battle does not come out of the blue for the small Bavarians who are still above the line.
After the championship season and several departures it was clear that the young, newly formed team had to find each other.
After these changes, going to the regional league would not be a sensation, but the headline "From master to relegated" is something that you definitely want to do without on Säbener Straße.
In terms of quality, the 2nd team of FC Bayern is one of the strongest teams in the league.
The players are all talented, only the maturity and experience are missing in the relegation battle.
At the moment, Holger Seitz's team is struggling with weak form.
Ups and downs are nothing new for the amateurs, already in the first half of the season they had to accept four defeats in a row, but with the pressure in the relegation battle, a tricky season finale beckons.
Offensive the Munich cardinal problem
The lack of a goalscorer like Otschi Wriedt could become a problem in the coming weeks.
Apart from veteran Timo Kern (eight goals), it looks poor on the offensive.
Remedy for the second half of the winter transfer Dimitri Oberlin should create, but his balance sheet is meager: nine missions, not a single one over 90 minutes, a single hit.
Real reinforcement looks different.
Seitz and his team have to save themselves over the finish line without a real goal getter.
A prognosis is difficult to make, the remaining program of the small Bavarians is too balanced.
A key game is on the program for the coming matchday: The reserve Easter weekend welcomes the penultimate VfB Lübeck in the local Grünwalder Stadium.
The relegation of SpVgg Unterhaching and FC Bayern II would be a shock for ambitious regional league teams
The fact that at the end of the season, in addition to SpVgg Unterhaching, the Reds' second team will have to go to the regional league is a conceivable scenario.
What would the crash into amateur football mean for SpVgg Unterhaching and FC Bayern II?
One thing would be clear: Both would target immediate resurgence.
But the return to the 3rd division will not be a sure-fire success.
Especially not if the U23 of the record champions don't hold the class either.
And ambitious teams like Schweinfurt, Aschaffenburg or Bayreuth, who are on hold, want to return to professional football.
A descent of the two top-class players would be a bitter pill for the other regional league teams.
Your own chances of advancement would then have to be reassessed.
The next few weeks will provide answers.