For both, him and the club, those one and a half years were a fine time. He helped us on the field and became again a Mexican national team player. We wish him all the best and will follow his career abroad. For the next season, a new goalkeeper is already under contract. Ralf Faehrmann (aged 20) is Schalkes number 2 behind Neuer, who became one of the best keepers in Germany within the last years. When Neuer was injured, Faehrmann played some matches for Schalke and for the German “Under 21” national team. In these matches, he showed high quality, so people speak of him as one of the best young keepers in Germany. Well, our 3 goalkeepers are not really fond of this perspective. Nikolov’s contract is about to end, Proell wants to stay number one (like he is currently) and Zimmermann (after years as a young number 3) wonders why Eintracht gets a goalkeeper even younger than him. One of them will have to leave for sure. Let us see what will happen in the next months.
Then, we played 3 tournaments indoor and won two of them. Nice, but of no real importance. After that, discussions began about the future of coach Funkel. There were rumours that some “deciders” didn’t want to keep him but chairman Bruchhagen made it clear that he is fond of Funkel’s work. Still, nobody really knew how it would end, when they didn’t agree on a new contract in the training camp in Portugal. But some weeks later, the contract was extended till 2010 and we could concentrate on soccer again.
Our first match in Berlin didn’t go well. We woke up to late from our winter sleep. Although we had a good second half and nearly turned the match after the first 2 Berlin goals, we lost in the end 2:1 (goal by Koehler). Proell saved a penalty kick, that was at least something.
It was followed by two home matches in a row. For other clubs, this is always a great chance to gather some points but as long as I can remember, Eintracht has never won both of them or at least got 4 points. It’s a miracle. This time, we nearly won against Cologne. Russ scored once more after a free kick by Steinhoefer (see his impressing header on the picture above). They are about to become a new dream-team like Streit and Kyrgiakos two years ago. We should have scored more goals in first half, but Fenin hit the bar. He is the player who did that most often this season and Cologne is the team who had most saves by post or bar. Novakovic, a good striker who plays very well in his first Bundesliga season scored for Cologne but we came back and forced the ball into the goal: Fenin’s shot hit the post (once again) and from the keeper’s back, the ball dropped over the line. But there was one dramatic moment when Chris attacked Radu in the penalty area. He hit him and that was a penalty – but not only that: Chris saw the red card. Although already this was a hard decision, he was then suspended for the 2 following matches. One match would have been enough, but it was already his second red card this season after Schalke in early autumn. Cologne scored by penalty, Funkel brought Vasoski into the match and took out an attacking player so we had no chances to score again and played 2:2 in the end.
Eintracht played really well the second half in Berlin and against Cologne but against Wolfsburg, it was one of the worst matches of the season. An early goal against us by Dzeko, (the third penalty kick in three games) we lost 0:2 without doing much against it. At least, we could take comfort in the fact, that we never win against the top teams – all right – but we never lose against the teams below us. This should help us stay in the league in this difficult season.
And this statistic also gave us hope for Karlsruhe where we once again played dreadful against an only slightly better opponent. But this time, there was (finally) no penalty against us and we were lucky in the important situations. Caio (still no more than a substitute) scored a great goal (picture below) and brought one moment of color and light into a grey and boring match. Some of our “supporters” used pyrotechnics in order to interrupt the match and cause some chaos. Eintracht has to pay for this a high fine of 40.000 Euros. If it happens once again, we might have to play a home-match without anybody watching. But the positive thing was, that in the fourth match 2009, we finally won and once more brought some distance between us and a team behind us.
Against Schalke, coach Funkel surprised everybody with a courageous formation: Kweuke, Fenin, Caio and Meier - many players who love to play offensive. But Schalke, although not fullfilling their own expectations, has the best defense in the league and they are the team with most goals after standards like corners and free kicks. Both of these qualities broke our neck. With a lot of effort, we were able to score one goal (header by Fink after a cross by Steinhoefer) but Schalke scored twice. The last goal 7 minutes before the end was the consequnece 
of one of their standards. Schalke played defensive and boring, we had more opportunities to score but in the end, they were more effective. We have to be very attentive not to be relegated!
I still want to inform you, that Ochs didn’t get the chance to play in the national team. Instead of him, Beck played, a Hoffenheim-player with similar strengths but less experience. We hope, the chance for Ochs will come soon. National Coach Loew saw the match against Schalke when Ochs - again - played really well.
There is still our meeting point one hour before each home-match in front of the Eintracht-museum. I am quite tall and will be wearing a red-black-white Eintracht-jacket in winter (and probably a backpack). If you want to be sure to meet me/us, please contact me/us by mail in advance. Here is one fan we will hopefully meet one day at the stadium, too: Lu Yang from China, a very faithful fan, in e-mail-contact with me for some years already and one of the persons who made me think of establishing an English newsletter.
