In SC Paderborn II’s 3-1 victory over Fortuna Cologne, two players who had been in the professional squad the day before were in the starting lineup. This greatly annoyed Fortuna coach Matthias Mink.
From SC Paderborn’s point of view, it was a perfect weekend in Cologne: on the eve of the U21 Regionalliga match against Fortuna Köln (3-1), the East Westphalia first team had already secured an away win at 1. FC Köln.
Fortuna coach Matthias Mink had already complained in the run-up to the Regionalliga match that the two games had not been scheduled at the same time, making it possible for players to be released from the Paderborn professional squad: “Because of this, I don’t really know who we’re up against on Saturday. It’s a bizarre situation on the part of the association. Normally, the youth teams should always play at the same time as the pros. This is not the case for us, and it’s not the first time. There are clear criteria, so I don’t understand it. It’s very annoying.”
At the press conference after the game, Mink reiterated his criticism: “The guy who scored the 2-1 (Mika Baur, editor’s note) was sitting on the bench yesterday during this league game (against 1. FC Köln, editor’s note) and has a market value of 1.5 million. That’s what happens when the same standards aren’t applied in league play and the U23 teams don’t always play at the same time as the pros. If we had played last night, Baur wouldn’t have been on the field.”
However, Mink also emphasized: “This is not a criticism of the second teams, but there is a clear guideline from the association that the second teams should, in principle, play at the same time as the professional teams. If you apply different standards from match day to match day and don’t treat everyone the same, then you end up with these kinds of changes, but that has nothing to do with Mika Baur or Anton Bäuerle being on the field, who were already in Cologne and are obviously supposed to play soccer, because that’s part of the training for these youth teams.”
Guest coach Daniel Brinkmann showed understanding for Mink’s statements, but also put them into perspective from his point of view: “I can understand that to a certain extent, but I would also like to emphasize that Adrian Bravo Sanchez, who was our top scorer this year and last year, was missing.” In fact, 30-year-old Bravo Sanchez had made his professional debut against FC the day before and was therefore not available for the Fortuna game.
Brinkmann also emphasized that the players concerned, Mika Baur and Anton Bäuerle, were not “finished players.” “No one has played for us yet who I would say is an established second division player. Mika Baur is on his way there, Anton Bäuerle played the first 15 minutes against Kaiserslautern last week. We mustn’t forget that we are talking about very young players.”
The topic is likely to occupy Matthias Mink again next week when his team faces Fortuna Düsseldorf’s U23s. Düsseldorf’s professional team will have already played Preußen Münster by then, so the players who don’t feature there can also be used in the U23s.