Things are currently going well for newly promoted Dostlukspor Bottrop in the district league. 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 is sitting in a solid tenth place in the Lower Rhine 6 district league and has not lost in five games. Coach Can Ucar is satisfied with this overall, but is also convinced that more was possible. After all, Bottrop 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 are a little dissatisfied with all the draws because we were often close to victory. But we have a young team that has very little district league experience, which is why we can be satisfied with that,” says Ucar, who is now hoping for a quiet season in mid-table: “We have relatively little to do with relegation, and the gap to the top is very big. We will probably neither be at the bottom nor at the top.”
Dostlukspor’s next game is on Wednesday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the district cup against VfB Bottrop, the current leaders of the Lower Rhine 2 regional league. Ucar’s team is hoping to cause an upset there, even though the coach is aware of how difficult the task will be.
“It will be a very interesting challenge. It’s the first competitive game we’ve had against a higher-ranked team. There’s a lot of anticipation, and it has to be said that VfB is probably the strongest club in Bottrop at the moment,” Ucar predicts.
In some games, I had to substitute myself, which wasn’t exactly my master plan.
Can Ucar
However, it is also a special game for the coach for another reason: Ucar has a history with VfB, but does not want to dwell on this in advance: “If I said it was a game like any other, I would be lying. I know the club and the players, and I’m still friends with many of them.”
After the cup game, three more league matches await Bottrop. The coach is hoping to pick up a few more points before his team heads to Turkey for their winter training camp. “It would be nice if we could pick up some more points there. Especially against RWE II, that would be a success, because they are very much in the public eye. We would make headlines,” reports Ucar. The head coach is concerned about the situation in the squad, and has been throughout the season. “We were already missing a lot of players in the preseason. Often there were 15 injured or absent players, which we suffered from. And it doesn’t look much better for the upcoming games, but we’re used to it,” explains Ucar, adding: “In some games, I had to substitute myself, which wasn’t exactly my master plan.”