VfB Frohnhausen must “really stretch” to stay in the bottom of the Lower Rhine regional league table, as coach Issam Said describes it.

VfB Frohnhausen are in acute danger of relegation after the first half of the season in the Landesliga Niederrhein 2. Instead of a carefree season, the situation at VfB is more complicated than in previous years. The team from Essen are five points off the drop zone – with one more game to play.

Coach Issam Said is also aware of the difficulty of this task. In the Forecasting interview, the 46-year-old explains the problems of the “catastrophic” first half of the season and why he still hopes to stay in the league.

Issam Said on…

… the first half of the season in the national league: “The first half of the season was catastrophic. We had hoped for much more, were negligent in dropping six to eight points along the way and could be in a different position in the table. The team is young and the assessment that we had nothing to do with the bottom was wrong. We had a lot of problems, a few departures during the season and suddenly we only had a mini squad at our disposal. We couldn’t fix that and it set us back a bit. Nevertheless, the team played really well in many phases. In the end, however, we lost all of the direct duels in the relegation battle

.. the best moment of the season so far: The best thing is to see the development of the team. Winning against Dingden and turning the game around against Niederwenigern was great to see what a good team we have. We want to capitalize on these moments and get more of them.

… the worst moment in 2023: The defeats against Steele or Budberg, where we should never have lost. We had a lot of games like that that we lost because we lacked a striker up front. Due to illness and injury, we couldn’t call on many players and only had 13 to 15 men. It was the same against Lintfort, where we led until the 87th minute and actually had everything under control, but then conceded two goals in five minutes. Those were not nice moments.

… the goals for 2024: We have to really stretch ourselves in 2024. We’re obviously a long way away and it will be a brutally difficult task for us. We’ll analyze the situation and see if we can get a few more players, but that’s difficult in the winter. However, we have to avoid relegation. The quality is there, but we have to be able to handle the pressure. We want to win the first two games and breathe new life into the team. I’ll try to get the team back on track and help them withstand the pressure so that we don’t end up relegated.”

“Points Table” src=“https://forecasting-sports.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-01-03-001412.png” width=“508” height=“673” /☻