Baris Özbek wants to get TuS Bövinghausen back on track in the Oberliga Westfalen. His first impressions revealed a few problems.

Baris Özbek has been on the sidelines of the Oberliga club TuS Bövinghausen for less than two weeks. Before his coaching career, he already wore jerseys of the big clubs: Union Berlin, MSV Duisburg, Rot-Weiss Essen and Turkish record champions Galatasaray were just four of the stops on his career path, which he ended in Bövinghausen in 2021. So the 37-year-old brings experience with him.

He wants to use this, after all, there is a lot of work to be done. “It’s not easy when you arrive in the middle of the season. The guys did all the preparation and the first few games with a different coach. We first had to get to know each other.”

We analyzed the last few games and found that the players weren’t playing together. We have to work on that. But I know that the team has good quality.

Baris Özbek

What he has to work on in the first few weeks until the winter break is clear to Özbek: “It’s important for me to develop a feel for the team. I have led four training sessions so far. In those sessions, it was important to me to get this compactness into the team. We analyzed the last few games and realized that the players weren’t playing together. We have to work on that. But I know that the team has good quality.”

After a win to start the season against TSG Sprockhövel (2:1), there was most recently a 0:1 defeat in Gievenbeck. Bövinghausen is only in ninth place in the table. There are still five league games to go before the winter break.

“The next few games won’t be easy. But we want to get everything out of the way before the winter break and win every game.” The aim is to reduce the current gap of nine points to the two promotion places as quickly as possible. The Dortmunders could take a big step in that direction on Friday evening (7:30 p.m.) against fourth-placed SC Preußen Münster II.