Rot-Weiss Essen is stuck in the 3rd Division. For the most part, it was against feasible opponents. A commentary.

What euphoria reigned at Rot-Weiss Essen after their promotion to the 3rd Division. There is not much sign of it any more, the performances so far have been too poor. No one expected the team to walk through the league, but something more than what has been offered so far would have been realistic.

Seven out of eight games were not won. And you get the feeling that coach Christoph Dabrowski is also still searching for the right solution for this team. At the beginning, he wanted to achieve the goals of the 3rd Division with offensive football. It quickly became clear that it wouldn’t work that way.

After the changeover, the focus was on defence. Now hardly anything goes forward. The 2-1 win against Erzgebirge Aue, the first and only victory of the young season, should have turned the tide. In addition, there were four new signings, RWE seemed to have finally arrived in the 3rd division.

But the performance in Osnabrück shows: The Esseners are displaying the basic virtues, they are fighting and fighting back on the pitch – but that’s all it is yet. There is only one game left before the international break – at home against 1. FC Saarbrücken. If the team does not improve, it will be difficult to go into the short break with more than six points.

If that is the case, it will be hard to avoid a first coach discussion in emotionally charged Essen, even if those responsible do not yet have this topic on their agenda. However, results must come quickly now, otherwise we will have the discussions in the autumn of the year that we had for a long time in the Regionalliga, when, after a few false starts, the goals were already a long way off by the end of September / October.

Now that won’t be the case in the fight to stay in the relegation zone, anything will be possible – even after the game against Saarbrücken. But that was not the claim of the Essen team, especially in view of their previous opponents. Before the Saturday matches of matchday eight, RWE are in 16th place – they have already played three of the four teams behind the Esseners (Bayreuth, Aue, BVB II). Nevertheless, it was only enough for a three-goal win.

Many teams in the top half are still to come, which makes it even clearer: RWE must quickly show that it is capable of playing in the 3rd league.