Battle for sixth place: A Herculean task for Peiting

Created: 03/08/2022, 09:35

By: Roland Halmel

Goals, goals, goals: EC Peiting needs a lot of goals in Tuesday's away game against Passau to still reach sixth place.

The photo was taken during the main round match against EV Lindau.

© Holger Wieland

The last main round match day in the Oberliga has it all: three teams fight for the direct play-off qualification.

This includes the EC Peiting, which is particularly challenged.

Peiting – At the end of the main round in the Oberliga Süd not only sporting skills are required, but also arithmetic skills.

The quotient rule means that sometimes the third digit after the decimal point decides on a placement.

The fight for sixth place is particularly exciting, with three teams, including EC Peiting, fighting it out on the last day of the game.

Before the catch-up game day, Höchstadter EC, SC Riessersee and EC Peiting are candidates for the position that means direct qualification for the play-offs (starting on March 18).

The seventh- and eighth-place teams will instead have to put in an extra shift in the pre-playoffs.

The people of Höchstadt have the best starting position to avoid this detour, and they also have it in their own hands to secure sixth place.

To do this, however, they have to win their last main round game at the "Eisbären Regensburg" (currently fourth).

EC Peiting must win hands down in Passau

A true Herculean task lies ahead of the ECP, which is still in eighth place.

In order to storm forward, coach Anton Saal's team would have to land a resounding victory at the "Passau Black Hawks".

With the threesome in Lower Bavaria, Peitinger would have caught SC Riessersee (points quotient 1.375) without a game.

Both teams would then have the same quotient.

The next criterion for determining the placement is the goal difference.

And here the Peitingers are clearly at a disadvantage compared to the Werdenfelsers.

“We have to win in Passau by nine goals,” Saal calculates.

Such a high victory is rather unlikely, even if Passau is already certain as penultimate and doesn't really have to make an effort anymore.

"We're not going to dream about landing such a big win," says Saal.

Instead, his motto is to win in Passau and then go into the pre-play-offs with confidence.

The starting signal for this will be given on Friday, March 11th.

It will not be clear until Tuesday night, after the end of the day, who the Peitingers are playing against, as the possible opponents from Lindau (ninth) and Füssen (tenth) could still meet and swap places.

"It's our own fault if we have to go into the pre-play-offs," says Saal, referring to the many points that have been wasted this season.

A single more would have been enough to prevent the current arithmetic games.

He also mourns the carelessly given away much higher victory in Landsberg on Sunday.

“At 5:1 we have a double advantage and miss the sixth goal.

And 15 seconds before the siren goes off we concede a goal,” Saal said angrily about the missed opportunity to go to Passau with a better goal difference.

In terms of personnel, he can probably rely on the same line-up for the Black Hawks as in Landsberg, since there is a big question mark over an assignment for the ailing Simon Maier and Florian Hechenrieder.