The sensation is perfect! Adler Union Frintrop will play in the Oberliga Niederrhein next season. Comment.
What do SV Elversberg and Adler Union Frintrop have in common? At first glance, not much, but on closer inspection they do. As promoted teams, both teams immediately rocked the higher league. Not through luck, but through offensive football and a clear idea of how to play with and against the ball.
Adler Union even have one thing ahead of SVE. On Sunday, in front of 1000 spectators in Frintrop, the Wasserturm eleven made the championship and the associated march from the Bezirksliga to the Oberliga perfect with an 8:0 win over VfB Frohnhausen. SV Elversberg, on the other hand, need one more win in their remaining three games to be promoted to the 2nd division by their own efforts.
With the Landesliga championship title, Adler Union Frintrop could write their very own football fairytale. A story that is rare in amateur football, but all the more impressive for that. In the parallel division, FC Büderich achieved a similar feat.
For the Frintropians, community, cohesion and solidarity with the club are paramount. At a time when many players change clubs every six months for a few euros more, the high-flyers from Wasserturm are an exception.
In the promotion match against Frohnhausen, Nils Reiners, Jonas Rübertus, Niclas Toepelt, Felix Ohters, Elias Brechmann and Yannick Reiners were six players in the starting eleven who made the direct leap from their own youth to the seniors.
These players have been playing together for many years – the team is correspondingly well-rehearsed and homogeneous. The cult saying “You must be eleven friends” is lived in Frintrop. Only Luca Mario Pirredda (came from Arminia Klosterhardt II) became a regular player as a newcomer. The other ten regulars already played for Adler Union when they were promoted from the Bezirksliga. The team deliberately did not make any expensive, higher-class additions.
Several top performers – including top scorer Reiners (30 goals) – had turned down requests to stay in Frintrop during their Bezirksliga days in the Oberliga. “The boys could earn a lot of money elsewhere, but they have character,” explained promotion coach Marcel Cornelissen before the season.
Despite a small budget, the club thus managed the sensational march through to the Oberliga, where games against KFC Uerdingen or ETB Schwarz-Weiß Essen soon await. Then, too, Frintrop will be able to rely on a well-rehearsed squad, because there will be no departures from the starting eleven – at least for sporting reasons.
It will be exciting to see how well the amateur club is prepared for the big adventure. Regardless of how the next season goes, however, one thing is clear: one can only take one’s hat off to Adler Union Frintrop. During the championship celebration, people sang: “Oberliga, nobody knows why.” But: Essen’s biggest amateur football sensation since FC Kray’s breakthrough (2012) is no coincidence.
*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***