Felix Bechtold was annoyed by his SV Lippstadt’s poor 4-0 defeat at Mönchengladbach II in the Regionalliga West. For him, there was reason to be happy just two days later.
The past weekend was one to forget for Felix Bechtold. His SV Lippstadt lost 4-0 at Borussia Mönchengladbach II and had to allow the colts to pull away to 14th place, probably the last non-relegation place, on three points. The new week started with all the better news for the 33-year-old.
On Monday, the Ingolstadt native passed his final examination in the coaching course for the A license required in the regional league. The Ingolstadt native, who took over as head coach at SVL in 2019, had actually already held this license some time ago. “I had registered and got in, but then coronavirus got in the way. There was then a restructuring of the selection process and I didn’t make it onto the course twice. Now I’ve finally got it behind me,” said Bechtold with relief.
However, shortly after successfully passing the exam, the focus returned to everyday league life, where Lippstadt suffered a bitter setback on Saturday. The match at the Grenzlandstadion actually started relatively evenly, although Gladbach had the better chances. “After a mistake in the build-up, we got the 0:1. Then it took us until five minutes before half-time to recover,” said the annoyed coach, who reacted with a change at the break.
With the score at 0:2, the belief was also gone
“We made changes at half-time and wanted to develop more penetration up front, but we conceded another disastrous goal. No Gladbach player was dangerous in any way, but we scored a very stupid own goal.” But the thing that really annoyed Bechtold that day only came after the 0:2. “After that, you simply have to say that the team didn’t present itself as I would have hoped. You can always turn around a 2-0 lead, but we surrendered. That is absolutely not in line with how we have to present ourselves.”
SVL remain 15th, but are now three points and nine goals behind the – as things stand at the moment – safety zone. “Nothing is lost, we still have every chance,” emphasized Bechtold and expressed his conviction: “If we pick up a lot of points in the next few games, we’ll climb another place. But we have to perform the way we did before and pick up points.” They were “miles away” from these performances on Saturday. “We knew beforehand that we would stumble in the last few games. Maybe it happened at the right time. It didn’t have to be, and I didn’t expect it to be like this.”
Many question marks and a difficult task against Schalke II
SVL will have to show a different face on Saturday (2 p.m.) when they host FC Schalke 04 U23. Similar to Gladbach, it is also difficult to assess the Schalke squad in advance. Accordingly, Bechtold demanded: “Once again, it will be important to focus on ourselves as far as possible and work through our own issues.”
Even if there are some question marks, for example around Steven van der Sloot and Jimmy Kaparos, who were recently in the professional squad, or the demoted Timo Baumgartl, who was not in the squad for Schalke’s 2-0 win over Velbert, Bechtold expects a team that has “even more class than Gladbach”. Nevertheless, the coach remained positive: “With the way we scored in the previous weeks, we also have the chance to win against Schalke. That’s exactly what we should stick to. “