Max Merkel is known for a pretty nice sentence that is unfortunately not appreciated often enough. At 1. FC Nuremberg, Merkel is something of a saint because he gave the club its last championship trophy in 1968, after having already won the Bundesliga with TSV 1860 Munich in 1966. But Merkel also experienced the other side of being a coach. When he was asked during his time at Karlsruher SC whether he felt any pressure, he said: “When I eat fruit, I sometimes feel pressure.”
Merkel, with her Viennese tongue, may not have said “Druck” but rather “Druckerl”. It is no longer possible to reconstruct the exact wording, but what is more important than the exact wording is that in the first few weeks of the season, TSV 1860 Munich had already reached the point where they would have liked to suggest Merkel’s phrase to their coach.
OpinionTSV 1860 Munich
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Comment by Markus Schäflein
It is not known how Argirios Giannikis, 44, feels about fruit, but the Sixty’s coach has been under pressure these days that certainly could not be described as a dud. After three defeats in the first three games, Giannikis had a lot at stake in the away game in Ingolstadt on Saturday afternoon, but in the end the Lions won 2:1 and breathed a sigh of relief. After the first victory, at least the great pressure on the team is gone. Third division football teams have escaped for the time being – but the 90 minutes in Ingolstadt can, and they know this in Giesing, at best be just a start.
“When you show off like that, the team is intact,” says 1860 captain Verlaat
“A huge burden has been lifted,” said Sechzig’s striker Maximilian Wolfram after the game: “We have suffered a lot in the last few weeks because we have taken a lot of punishment, so it was extremely important to make a statement.” And this statement was quite something.
At 2:03 p.m. referee Felix Bickel gave the go-ahead to play, at 2:06 p.m. Sechzig had their first corner after a shot from David Philipp, at 2:07 p.m. an attempt by Raphael Schifferl was cleared just before the line, and at 2:08 p.m. Munich were leading 1-0 thanks to a wonderful finish from Wolfram. It was the opening phase that the Lions had imagined, but of course it couldn’t continue like that. When Ingolstadt built up something of a push later on, it was clear that the Lions’ structure was currently quite shaky, but then substitute Julian Guttau scored and put Sechzig’s first win of the season in sight.
“Internally, everything is fine. When you show off like that, the team is intact,” said captain Jesper Verlaat after the game and did not want to hear that the victory was also a victory for Giannikis. Sixty’s coach himself also brushed aside all questions about himself and emphasized his joy “that the team has finally been rewarded.” But because Druckerl on Grünwalder Strasse is more of a pressure man by nature, the situation was certainly tense.
But anyone who saw the act of will that underpinned the Lions’ performance, how energetically René Vollath shouted his joy when he had thwarted Ingolstadt’s shots, or how Verlaat jumped chest to chest with Sechzig’s goalkeeper to celebrate Vollath’s save, noticed that Sechzig wanted to defend itself into a frenzy on that Saturday afternoon. “When you head the thing away or just manage to get a leg in front of it, it inspires you,” Verlaat later explained. The Lions were determined to turn things around, and in the end, when referee Bickel put an end to the game, the team had succeeded.
On Tuesday, TSV 1860 will be playing against Bayern league team FC Memmingen in the state cup
Shortly before the end, Ingolstadt reduced the deficit again with a penalty from Pascal Testroet, raising fears among the 60s that the team would now definitely make it 2-2, but even though that would have been a good fit given the current situation, the Munich team held firm and brought the lead home. When Vollath caught the ball in the last scene of the game, he waited a few seconds and held it above his head with both hands as if it were a trophy.
It will probably be a while before Sechzig actually raises silverware to the sky, but the 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon certainly gave cause for relief.
When Merkel was asked about the pressure in Karlsruhe, he was fired shortly afterwards. When Giannikis was asked in Ingolstadt how much pressure he was under, he said: “No pressure at all. I’m just happy for the team.” That was the end of the matter for him. And because nobody knows how Giannikis feels about Obst, it won’t come up again until Tuesday at the earliest: TSV 1860 Munich will be playing against Bayern league team FC Memmingen in the state cup.
