Things are currently going well for newly promoted Dostlukspor Bottrop in the Bezirksliga. Coach Can Ucar takes stock of the season so far and looks ahead to the upcoming district cup match.
With 19 points from the first 14 matchdays, Dostlukspor Bottrop sits in a solid tenth place in the Bezirksliga Niederrhein 6 and hasn’t lost in five matches. Coach Can Ucar is generally satisfied with this, but he’s also convinced that more was possible.
That’s because the Bottrop team has by far the most draws in the league. And if it were up to Ucar, some of those could have gone in his team’s favor. “We’re a bit dissatisfied with all these draws, because we were often close to a win. But we have a young squad with very little Bezirksliga experience, so we can be satisfied with that,” says Ucar, who is now hoping for a quiet season in the middle of the table: “We’re relatively far from relegation, and the gap to the top is very large. We probably won’t end up at the bottom or the top.”
Dostlukspor’s next match is on Wednesday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the district cup against VfB Bottrop, the current leader of the Landesliga Niederrhein 2. Ucar’s team hopes to pull off an upset there, even though the coach is well aware of how difficult the task will be.
“This will be a very interesting challenge. It’s the first competitive match we’re playing against a team from a higher division. We’re really looking forward to it, and it’s fair to say that VfB is probably the strongest club in Bottrop right now,” Ucar said, looking ahead.
In some games, I had to sub myself in—that wasn’t exactly part of my master plan.
Can Ucar
For the coach, however, it’s also a special game for another reason: Ucar has a history with VfB, but he doesn’t want to dwell on it ahead of the match: “If I said it was a game like any other, I’d be lying. I know the club and the players; I’m still friends with many of them.”
After the cup match, three more league games await the Bottrop team. The coach is hoping to pick up a point or two there before his team heads back to training camp in Turkey for the winter break. “It would be nice if we could pick up some more points there. Especially against RWE II, that would be a success, because they’re in the public eye. That would make headlines,” Ucar reports.
The head coach is concerned about the state of the roster—a concern that has persisted throughout the entire season. “We were already missing a lot of players during preseason. Often, we had 15 injured or absent players, and we’ve suffered as a result. And things don’t look much better for the upcoming matches, but we’re used to it,” explains Ucar, who adds: “In some games, I had to sub myself in—that wasn’t exactly part of my master plan.”