One of coach Nadine Nurasyid’s last official acts was a comparably simple one for her: The Munich Cowboys team was still standing around on the field, while President Werner Maier, already with microphone in hand, wanted to announce Nurasyid’s farewell to the spectators with the bouquet of flowers waited next to the long jump sandbox at the Dante Stadium. The head coach turned around and yelled, “Teeeeam,” so you could probably hear it in the Olympic Park. The team immediately came running, there was a thank you to the volunteers and to the assistant coach Justin Sottilare, who will also be leaving the Cowboys, and then a big round of applause for the 37-year-old, who in turn also thanked the audience : “I know one or two games weren’t so nice, so thank you for your support.”
It was a bittersweet farewell on Saturday afternoon, and the setting was fitting. When the Cowboys won 16:13 against the Ravensburg Razorbacks with a lot of noise, on the one hand they were able to celebrate staying in the league. There was a lot at stake: The Cowboys are the “Grand old team of the south”, one of seven founding members of the German Football League in 1979, German champions in 1993, and with a brief interruption in the noughties, always in the first division – and at least in Munich is always number one.
At least 1,700 spectators came to this decisive relegation battle game, but as they celebrated the players, there was also an ambulance on the tartan track, and in it was defender Mohamed Chaar. He had previously been given an infusion. Even on Sunday, no one wanted to say exactly what the injury was. The Cowboys had made a lot of sacrifices to be able to stay in the first Bundesliga, and had also been a bit lucky: Ravensburg had lost their quarterback Alexander Kronberg Bjerre in the middle of the season, who simply didn’t return from vacation in August, additional commitments were no longer possible. The Cowboys’ offense got rolling at exactly the right moments in this long, exciting game. In the final minutes, with the score at 13:13, ball carrier Shakif Seymour rumbled his way deep into the opposing half, and Cowboys kicker Baris Dasar then made the final score with a confidently converted field goal.
“I don’t feel anything at the moment,” Nurasyid said half an hour after the game, probably in the calm eye of an emotional storm. It had been a season full of uncertainties, especially because the Cowboys had lost a double-digit number of players to the new Munich team, the Munich Ravens in the European League of Football (ELF). “This year I learned that a plan B is not nearly sufficient for the things that come along. I had a plan B, C, D and E,” Nurasyid says with a laugh. Towards the end she has now reached “roughly Plan F”.
Nurasyid’s departure marks the end of an era for the Cowboys
F for television, you could say. With the start of the new season of the US professional league NFL last weekend, Nurasyid is part of the RTL team that secured the rights for the first time and aims to finally bring American football into the mainstream of society in Germany. Nurasyid has initially only taken over a fringe program called NFL Sideline together with women’s national team quarterback Mona Stevens, but she is also a novice. And made it clear after the game against the Razorbacks: “I’m a coach. If I have time, I’ll do something else.” However, she now needs a break from coaching after this strenuous season.
Nurasyid’s departure marks the end of an era for the Cowboys. The sports scientist has also been there as a player and assistant coach over the past ten years, and then as head coach after the pandemic. It must have been an enormous effort to keep the team in the first league after this bloodletting. The Cowboys have to reposition themselves, at a time when they are likely to lose even more players to the ELF than they already do. Football is experiencing an enormous surge in popularity in the country, but the 44-year-old Cowboys are only at a disadvantage as a result. With the departure of the head coach, there is now a hole at the coaching level.
After the Cowboys had avoided relegation, Ravensburg coach Sascha Brändle announced that he did not even want to compete for relegation. What is not received well in another Bavarian community: The Kirchdorf Wildcats are second division champions and would have loved to play the relegation game. “We would use this income alone to pay for the license for the coming season,” says Wildcats board member Hans-Peter Klein. The Razorbacks’ announcement is considered “unsporting”, and this behavior does not radiate the professionalism that the GFL needs to assert itself against the ELF. The Munich team, on the other hand, will continue to try to assert themselves as number two in the city as best they can.
2023-09-10 18:06:47
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