After the 2:4 defeat against SC Neheim, YEG Hassel’s relegation to the Landesliga is sealed. The origin of the relegation goes back some time.
As has always been the case in recent weeks, YEG Hassel coach Hakan Durdu had to make changes in the last championship match against SC Neheim due to suspensions and injuries and even had to call in reinforcements from the second team (ninth in Kreisliga A).
Nevertheless, he explained after the match, in which his team had the class preservation in their own hands: “I was even sure that we would win the match. But the unplanned substitution and the goal against out of nowhere, it’s difficult to motivate the players again.” Johannes Thiemann, who laced a treble, put SCN ahead with a deflected long-range shot. Shortly afterwards, Raygivano Dompig had to leave the pitch with an injury.
After the 0:2, the belief gradually disappeared, which only returned after the 2:3 connection. “Unfortunately, the ball doesn’t go in again and you concede the fourth,” Durdu was annoyed about the 2:4 defeat.
Hassel thus ends the season in penultimate place in the table after five defeats in a row. DSC Wanne-Eickel and DJK TuS Hordel passed them with wins of their own. The last win for YEG came on matchday 20. Why did things go so badly in the final spurt of the season? “We had too many injured and suspended players.”
Durdu was clear: “You can’t go into the season with 15, 16 men. Nobody can tell me that was right. It was wrong. Even if we had stayed in the league, it would have been wrong.”
Durdu: “Everyone is to blame”
It was virtually impossible for the team to settle in. Nevertheless, the coach held firm: “These are all excuses. We simply had to get three points from the last eight games. We didn’t manage that. The club, the coach, the players, everyone is to blame.”
The German-Turk is now taking his players in particular to task. “At our club, the players stay here because they identify with the club and have certain roles here. Everyone has said that they will continue next year. Accordingly, the club has positioned itself,” he gave an insight.
“When you get relegated, you have to show character, take responsibility and say: OK, we messed up, now we have to straighten it out. If a player comes in who has agreed to play and wants to leave, then for me that’s a lack of character,” Durdu made clear.
But it is also clear that reinforcements are needed. “Of course we want to aim for promotion again, that’s clear for us. In terms of quality, we have twelve or thirteen players with whom you can play at the top of the Landesliga. But in terms of the season, you can’t compete.”
Durdu himself will clarify his future on Tuesday. “The board told me weeks ago to move on. But I told them I wanted to talk about it again to analyse everything calmly,” he explained.
Transfer policy was “a disaster
In particular, he wants to work through the mistakes of last summer. The transfer policy was “a disaster”, he reiterated. “The players who were bought in the summer were brought in by Ahmet Inal. He bet on the players and then left in the winter. In the end, I had to work with what he brought in. I don’t know if he didn’t recognise the lack of depth in the squad at the time. You could have reacted differently, but you didn’t.”
This, he said, is the reason why YEG are now heading to the Landesliga. “If someone comes and tells me that tactically or in terms of the approach, it was all wrong, I would also tell them that they are wrong. Of course I have responsibility,” Durdu explained, “but with this whole concept that has now failed here, I’m the last person to blame.”
But after analysing the mistakes, he said, one must quickly look forward again. “It happened unfortunately, but now we have to make sure that the club gets back to where it belongs.” For the coach himself, it was the first relegation in his career. However, he explained: “I’ve never been promoted either, so we’ll get there next year,” and let it be known that he could well imagine staying in Hassel.