Another Cup Goes Dry

DFB Pokal – Nurnberg vs. SpVgg Greuther Furth – I had high hopes for Nurnberg’s match against SpVgg Greuther Furth in their DFB Pokal match up. I was coming off the high of Der Club’s nice weekend win, and was thinking that could carry over into this match making a win easy. Helping that was the fact that SpVgg Furth is a 2^nd Division Bundesliga team. However, after SpVgg scored first in the match in the 15^th minute, I decided I needed a closer look at their season so far. Sure they’re a 2^nd Division side, however they’re in second place with high chances at promotion. Great. Nurnberg is a bottom table team in the 1^st Division so they’re basically equal quality (if SpVgg Furth isn’t actually better). Looking deeper I also discovered that they have two of their players in the top five of the top scoring players in the 2^nd Division Bundesliga this year. Double great. Oh, and they also have the greatest goal differential in their league this year, because of the second best offense and the best defense (based on goals for and against respectivly). Great, Great, Great.

Well, like I said Nurnberg were down 1-0 already after the 15^th minute. Off course, they did score three goals this past Saturday against Leverkusen, but they do have one of the lowest scoring sides in the Bundesliga for a reason. They just couldn’t find that goal to get back level in the game. SpVgg Furth even had a player sent off in the 66^th minute with a second yellow card, but Der Club still couldn’t get caught up. They were just playing flat against a team that really had the enthusiasm to knock off a 1^st Division side. I thought Nurnberg should have gotten a foul call or two towards the closing moments (one could’ve given a penalty), but that’s how things go sometimes. The match would end with a 1-0 score and Nurnberg would be out of the Pokal.

With that, Nurnberg go into the winter Bundesliga break with a mixed bag. They are out of the DFB Pokal (which in reality, they probably wouldn’t have won anyway) but more importantly they are out of the relegation zone. I’ll take the latter over the former any day. We’ll have to wait awhile until the next match though. With the winter break, Nurnberg’s next match isn’t until January 21^st. With that said, Der Club will be absent from my match reports until after then. Of course, if they pick up a transfer in January – which I really hope they do – be darn sure that I’ll mention it here. Until then, I’ll just have to get my German fix by drinking some nice German beer…