Köllner: "This game will not decide about prosperity or disaster in this league"

Created: 2022-01-14Updated: 2022-01-14, 11:17 p.m

By: Uli Kellner

Unfortunately, you have to stay outside: Corona is once again excluding fans from Giesing's heights.

© Imago

Sunshine at 1860?

Not quite.

The anticipation of the restart is clouded by the renewed exclusion of the fans.

Gorenzel: "Distortion of competition!"

Of course, Michael Köllner would still prefer to be skiing. "Actually you should go up into the mountains," said the 1860 trainer, looking at the freezing cold January weather, which awakens two things in him: a desire for winter sports, which is difficult to reconcile with his job. And, another longing with a current reference: “Blue sky and sunshine – almost like Turkey. Only the outside temperature is slightly different.”

Belek, one hears, left a lasting impression on Köllner's lions. “We have had a very good training camp. The conditions on the pitch and the weather were great,” he said at the press conference on Friday, which introduced Köllner's alternative weekend activity. Don't wave down the ski slopes, but stand on the Giesinger Berg at the edge of the field - in the first league game of the year against Wehen Wiesbaden (Saturday, 2 p.m.). Köllner's outlook: "We hope that the fans will experience great, successful lions in the coming year."

He sees the opponent from Hessen's state capital, two places better than in the table, as the first touchstone, but not yet as a task with a fateful character.

"I think it will be a game at eye level, a hard-fought one," said Köllner: "It's trend-setting for the next few weeks, no question.

But this one game will not decide about the better or worse in this league every unit participated in the return from Turkey.

All players can be used - except for Wein and Goden

As Köllner explained in Belek, his goal is to sweeten the time for the loyal followers during the never-ending Corona state of emergency. "Everyone should get an attitude to life that is positive," he said: "Especially in this sch... pandemic, it's important that sixty wins - then there can be a hundred variants for some fans. Something like that drives me.” It's just bitter that the fans won't be watching the game live in the stadium, but "at the gas station, in the kebab shop" – or wherever.

Köllner finds the renewed exclusion of spectators and the continuation of the ghost games "terribly unfortunate".

Sports director Günther Gorenzel next to him sees it the same way, but didn't just regret it, but threw out terms like "distortion of competition" at the push of a button - because at other locations at least a few scenery fans are allowed in the arenas.

Gorenzel to the DFB: equal opportunities - or compensation

"You speak from my heart," said Gorenzel, addressing the person who gave the keyword: "On the one hand, we are glad that we can practice our profession in times of a pandemic.

But the fact is that we were the first in football to develop viable hygiene concepts that worked perfectly for two years - and we now have different regulations again," brought about by federalism in Gorenzel's adopted home.

The Austrian's demand: DFB and DFL must ensure equal opportunities, optionally initiate "such things as compensation payments".

Because: "We will be very painfully affected by it in the next few weeks." And detached from the financial: "1860 in pure power", says Köllner, is only available with spectators.