1. FC Nuremberg against Relegation: First ascent ambitions, now relegation fears

Proud to be 120 years old the 1 is.FC Nürnberg in may to become the club can look back on a great history. With nine titles in the "Club of privilege" to 1987, "the German record champion" call, since then new records are in most cases not, the printing on the pennants. Nine descents from the football League it is so far, for example, now Nuremberg is experiencing the longest season in the club's history – what the "Club", however, (almost) nothing, the Coronavirus is all paralyzed.

Particularly paralyzed, however, Nürnberg returned from the enforced break, which is why the dreary season, started with the kick-off Training on may 21. June 2019, even after a year and 15 days is still not finished. In two relegation games against the third-League-third-FC Ingolstadt has to the with career ambitions launched, but at rank 16, the 2. Bundesliga-arrived team to prevent the crash in the third class. It is of Nuremberg, the second would be after 1996, when it went down in the Regionalliga Süd, and the second in a row, until 2019, the "Club was relegated" from the League.

How could it come so far, to be analyzed, when the aftermath is over, for the time being, all attention will be on the first leg against Ingolstadt this Tuesday in Nuremberg (18.15 clock, live on ZDF and in the F. A. Z.-Liveticker for Relegation). It goes wrong in the end, are after the game on Saturday not only are the days of only in April 2019, Fortuna Düsseldorf brought the sport Board of management, Robert Palikuca counted. In the criticism of the Supervisory Board, the volunteer body that, in accordance with the successful effort of the financial consolidation, Palikuca, the sporting fate of the temporarily close to the bankruptcy converted Association entrusted and witness had to, as none of the games Palikucas rose is now. The club's colours in the summer of 2020: finally back in the black figures for the Red alert to is sporty. The descent a fall would be into the almost Bottomless; the revenue alone from the TV money would decrease by approximately ninety percent.

Although most of the industry representatives, and almost all media observers are quite fond of Palikucas renovation work last summer, for the first Training in 2000, Fans greeted the footballer with a lot of applause, the club was well placed, but this remained a theory. In practice, it was from the rest of the League-ascenders of 2018, and more than a dozen in fact, a lot of the new additions promise to never have a team. The Vienna Damir Canadi, brought to coach as Palikucas desire, had to go after four months.

The successor should fix it. "Of course we don't rise", said Jens Keller in the winter break, but the longer the season lasted, the sad Nürnberg looked (and the more clueless the basement). In the end it went in the strong down, the basement should only have to keep kind of the class, but the only victory after the pandemic-related break, a 6:0 over SV Wehen Wiesbaden, was followed by a shocking 0:6 against VfB Stuttgart, which is the 1:1 was in Kiel to little.

The totally insecure-acting team was missing: everything. Every structure in the game, but especially for those wit, the League had promoted teams played in the heart of the Annex. That can't happen, what must not happen, seemed like the only remaining idea also didn't work, had to go to the until then by Palikuca with a rather empty encouragements based in the cellar, with an even worse balance sheet as a Canadi.

The art of displacement had led to the edge of the abyss, for a decisive Action, it was too late, which is why the Supervisory Board and Palikuca agreed to in the past, repeatedly, and always unsuccessfully, by-the-numbers-fix solution: on emergency responders from the own house, in the relegation play Michael Wiesinger, head of the Junior performance centre take care of, and Marek Mintal, the coach of the under-21 team in the Regionalliga, the struggling football player.

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"heart's blood test," says Wiesinger, need it for this Emergency SURGERY that he brings to it, is out of the question. As a professional, experienced Inger with instructed those six years on the court, led by the Bundesliga into the Regionalliga and back. Later he was U-21 coach, and for ten months, until October 2013, head coach of Bundesliga professionals. Marek Mintal knows in Nuremberg each, he has shaped as a scorer and biggest crowd favourite of the modern era, with the DFB Cup win in 2007, winning Era. "To find the one that is going through the fire", it is even more important now, says Wiesinger, the optimism and determination of stresses in living. "Firmly convinced," says he, was he of the Success of the Mission, which ends for him, one way or the other, with the return game.