“Now it’s unbearable”Captain Ulm openly called for expulsion and starting over
As a second division relegated team, SSV Ulm was in the relegation zone after the first third of the third division season. After five straight losses, the need is great and the desperation seems even greater. The team captain wrote a drastic letter.
Division 3 is traditionally a tough place for those relegated to the second division. Since 2015, there have only been two seasons in which at least one relegated team was not in serious danger of qualifying directly for the regional league. It even hit FSV Frankfurt and Würzburger Kickers, and both clubs have tried in vain to return to professional football ever since. SSV Ulm 1846 also feared it would suffer the same fate.
“Spatzen” is in 18th place after 13 match days and has lost five matches in a row: 1:4 in Ingolstadt, 1:2 against Cottbus, 0:5 in Verl, 1:3 against Stuttgart II and 0:5 against Rostock. Letters from both team captains now show that the result was the result of grievances that went beyond sport.
“The relationship between the team, the coach and, above all, the sporting director is completely damaged,” he said, and even within the team “the situation (…) has now become unbearable.” Captains Johannes Reichert and Christian Ortag chose drastic words. According to “Kicker”, those who were actually addressed to the internal letter were members of the supervisory board and supporters of SSV. The text was published on Sunday – the day after the Ulm team thanked their 19-year-old goalkeeper Max Schmitt at the Donaustadion at home against Hansa Rostock for the fact that the score remained 0:5 and did not continue any further.
The first coach must leave in Ulm
Therefore, centre-back Reichert and goalkeeper Ortag have formulated a cry for help, asking the club management to finally intervene. “Act now before it is too late,” they wrote, “the situation is also almost unbearable for us personally.” This was clearly a problem with the line-up or tactical orientation: “The players were completely helpless. They had no backing, no backing, no trust.” Instead, they will be “made scapegoats internally and publicly.” With real consequences, as explained by the two captains, who were both unable to play against Rostock due to injury: “Many of us are at the end of our strength – mentally, emotionally and humanly.”
They called for “a completely new start to maintain the slim chance of staying in the league.” To do this, teams need fast help – and people who believe in it. According to “Kicker,” the focus is on managing director Markus Thiele, whom Ulm fans have been calling for for weeks to be removed.
There has been a change of coach this season; Robert Lechleiter, who was promoted from U19s to professional coach in the spring, had to leave again in September. After six points from the first six games, Moritz Glasbrenner has been on a temporary absence since then, but has only been able to pull off a short-term turnaround: two wins and a draw early on followed by the five consecutive defeats described above.
A man from Ulm knows the hole the SSV is currently in
The timing of this letter was probably not chosen by chance: the 3rd League is also on break during the international fixture window, while Ulm will not resume until November 22. A relatively common time to make major changes in sports leadership. Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg, for example, has taken advantage of this to let go of its coach Paul Simonis. In the hope of being able to make the most of the time without playing around with new impulses. Reichert and Ortag also have these hopes, especially considering their opponents in just under two weeks’ time: Team Ulm will then visit bottom club TSV Havelse, the only club yet to win this season.
Another setback on the bottom line would be tantamount to declaring sports bankruptcy. Therefore, the Ulm captains turned directly to the club’s management: “We implore you: intervene, stand beside us and help us pull the train out of the mud again before it is too late.” An urgent call for immediate action: “We must not let the players down – neither as athletes nor as human beings.”
The two long-time residents of Ulm certainly took this path so that they and their teammates did not dig themselves into a deep hole like the second division’s relegated teams, which threatened to “march” to the regional league last year: VfL Osnabrück was at the bottom of the table for months, fired the coach and sporting director in December, and radically changed the squad in the winter. One of the figures who experienced further progress was Niklas Kölle, who was on loan from Ulm. His reunion with his former teammates on matchday 18 will be bittersweet if nothing changes at SSV by then.
