ASV Mettmann will face Rot-Weiß Oberhausen in the quarter-finals of the Niederrheinpokal. They will probably not be allowed to play at home.
It has become the big draw: ASV Mettmann, a district league team, will face regional league team Rot-Weiß Oberhausen in the Niederrheinpokal quarter-finals. “We are definitely looking forward to it,” says Mettmann’s first chairman Cihan Yilmaz in a first reaction.
Nevertheless, there is a small drop of bitterness: ASV will probably not be able to play the match at their home sports centre. “As far as I know, we are not allowed to play at our facility for safety reasons. Wülfrath or Velbert would be possible. We’ll have to get together in the boardroom first.”
The road to the quarter-finals, however, has been impressive in every respect. In the first round, last year’s third-placed team in the Oberliga Niederrhein, VfB Hilden, was eliminated (2:1), followed by the relegation from the Regionalliga, VfB Homberg (2:1), and last week, the current second-placed team in the Oberliga, SSVg Velbert (3:1). “The boys did really well,” says Yilmaz. “Nobody really expected that. After the games, there was also a celebration.”
In a possible semi-final, they would play the winner of the match between SV Sonsbeck and Ratingen 04/19, but Yilmaz doesn’t want to think about that yet: “RWO is really a big team. We have to get through that first.” He stresses that it would also have been difficult for ASV Mettmann against a team from the top division, but: “Anything is possible, as we have proven in the previous rounds.
But there is still some homework to do before the Niederrheinpokal quarter-finals. In the league, they have to play the second team of Sportfreunde Bauberg, SSV Berghausen, TSV Ronsdorf and Dabringhauser TV, and in between they have to play Sportfreunen Siepen in the district cup.
ASV Mettmann, who were relegated from the Landesliga in 2018, are currently sixth in the Bezirksliga Niederrhein Group 2. Yilmaz: “We have to make sure we don’t lose touch. We want to move up. We didn’t count on the success in the cup. “