"We have to strengthen ourselves"

Created: 12/17/2021, 10:01 AM

By: Wolfgang Krzizok

Helpless looks: Coach Thomas Vogl and the team around newcomer Tim Gabriel hope that things will soon look up.

© Christian Riedel

Gladiators looking for new players.

Erding - The Erding Gladiators continue their hunt for appointments in the Bavarian League.

After Tuesday's game against Königsbrunn (1: 4), coach Thomas Vogl's squad will compete at TEV Miesbach this evening (8 p.m.) and receive the River Rats from ESC Geretsried on Sunday (6 p.m.).

The most important question for the gladiators at the moment is: How is the roster looking? “On the Tuesday after the game, I worked until three in the morning and talked for a few hours on the phone from eight,” says the coach. "We just have to strengthen ourselves qualitatively and quantitatively in the near future." That is why he let his contacts play and hopes that the club will soon be able to announce the completion of one or the other newcomer. “We now need short-term solutions,” Vogl urges and points out: “Of the nine top strikers we had at the start of the season, only Sebastian Busch and Philipp Michl were able to play in the end. I can't and don't want to wait until we have to carry them off the ice because they're flat. "

So there will definitely be some junior players in the squad again at the weekend. Marko Babic's injury, who was shot on his already injured finger on Tuesday, turned out to be “not so bad”. "Thank goodness nothing in the Babo broke," says the trainer. "You have to wait until the swelling goes down, but you can't go against Miesbach yet."

Vogl describes today's opponent as "the qualitatively and quantitatively strongest team in the league". Of course, the gladiators are blatant outsiders in the second place in the table, "but we go there to be able to stand up to the Miesbachers and to make their lives as difficult as possible," promises Vogl. Even if he knows, of course, that the strikers around the striker Bohumil Slavicek and Patrick Asselin "are already in a class of their own". In addition, TSV has the toughest defenders in the league with Matthias Bergmann, Johannes Bacher, Beppo Frank and Niki Maier.

The Sunday game against Geretsried "is again a game that we should actually win at home," says Erdings gang boss, because the River Rats are currently fourth from bottom.

The great strength of the team of coach Rudi Sternkopf is the balance.

So there is no player who stands out, and at the moment Geretsried is placed below value.

With Heigl, Köhler, Fuchs, Berger and Reiter, five German players are currently at the top of the internal scorer list, only then comes the strong Czech Ondrej Horvath.