Gladiators compete with the basement children

Created: 01/14/2022, 13:00

By: Wolfgang Krzizok

The gladiators (from left) Lars Bernhardt, Florian Zimmermann and Roni Rukajärvi want to celebrate again.

© Christian Riedel

The final weekend of the Bayernliga qualifying round is just around the corner.

Erding – At the end of the qualifying round, the Erding Gladiators will be up against the bottom two of the Bavarian League this weekend.

Tonight (8 p.m.) the team coached by Thomas Vogl will visit bottom-placed VfE Ulm/Neu-Ulm, on Sunday (6 p.m.) they will be at home against penultimate EC Pfaffenhofen.

The Gladiators, who started out with such great ambitions, just missed out on the promotion round after unbelievable personal bad luck. "Now it's about preparing for the relegation round," says Coach Vogl. That won't be easy because he only has ten players from the Bayernliga squad available for the weekend. "That's why we will fill up with juniors, because I don't want to burn the few healthy players. Not that anyone else gets injured.” It is still very uncertain whether licensed players will come from Deggendorf. "They had a game failure last week because of Corona, they all have to be tested first."

The long-term injured players from the Erdinger regular line-up are missing Marko Babic, who is ill, as well as the injured Michael Trox and Florian Zimmermann. "But that's more of a precautionary measure with regard to the relegation round," explains Vogl, who is happy that Lars Bernhardt is fit again. "He was extremely lucky in the game in Dorfen that he played with bars," says the coach. During a duel, an ESC player fell and "accidentally hit the bat full in the face" of Erdinger. Bernhardt had to go into the dressing room with a headache and slight dizziness, but will be there at the weekend. "He's fine again," reports the Erdinger coach.

The Gladiators had played against the two weekend opponents in mid-October, it was the first six-point weekend - and until last week the only one of the season. "It's been a long time since we played them both," says Vogl, who expects a difficult game, especially in Ulm. The Devils have upgraded and strengthened themselves with the Czech Martin Podesva from Oberliga Deggendorf. The 33-year-old will make his debut today. "They're all upgrading again, and we have to prepare for that," knows Erding's gang boss, who isn't blinded by the rankings. The Gladiators already had massive problems with the 6:5 in the first leg and only turned a 3:5 deficit in the final period. Also in Pfaffenhofen, the Erdinger struggled for two thirds and only shot with a 4:0 in the final section a 7:3 out.

"This weekend, the only thing that counts for us is getting through and preparing for the relegation round," said coach Vogl.

In any case, there should be something to celebrate for the Gladiators, because they currently have 99 goals this season.

The shooter of hit number 100 must issue a cabin feast.