Key points
- Erzgebirge Aue is threatened with falling into the regional league.
- However, there are still no discussions with the players just in case.
With the quarter-finals in the state cup on Sunday at SSV Progress Lichtenstein, the current international games offer FC Erzgebirge Aue some distraction from the dreary everyday life in the 3rd league. While the cup is intended to preserve the chance of moving into the first round of next year’s DFB Cup and securing income at least in the low six-figure range, otherwise it is extremely sad.
With eight match days to go, Aue is in 18th place in the table and is already an enormous nine points behind 1. FC Saarbrücken, who are just on the safe side in 16th place. After all the last six games were lost and only a very meager two points were recorded from the eleven encounters in the second half of the season, it is difficult to believe in a successful catch-up, especially since the change of coach from Jens Härtel to Christoph Dabrowski in the meantime had no positive effect.
At least 14 professionals without a contract for the new season
Sooner or later in Aue you will have to face the reality that the Regionalliga Nordost is called, in which there are some explosive derbies that will certainly attract spectators, but the cost apparatus will have to be drastically reduced simply because of the lack of television money.
A change in the squad, which is likely to be forced by the club based on the club’s performance so far this season, is the result for financial reasons alone, although even if they stay in the league, 14 contracts would expire and some other working papers will probably not be valid for the regional league.
At least in public, sports director Michael Tarnat does not want to deal with the case yet. “As long as it’s still mathematically possible, I don’t want to comment publicly on the relegation scenario. If the players only ever read about the 4th league, they lose the last spark of hope and faith,” says the ex-national player
Tag24
quoted, who also revealed that the existing staff still has to wait: “As long as relegation is still possible, I will not speak to any of our players.”
Marcel Bär signals willingness to talk
Behind the scenes, Tarnat has certainly already looked ahead and thought about how the already announced mission of resurgence should be approached. “The fans can be sure that if we do not manage to stay in the league, a powerful team will be at the start in the summer that will attack and play for promotion,” the 56-year-old announced, but otherwise did not want to give any further insights.
It remains to be seen whether striker Marcel Bär will continue to play for the violets in the future. The attacker, who is the second best goalscorer in the history of the 3rd division with 84 goals in 267 games, now told the
kickernot wanting to concern himself with his personal future at the moment, but also signaled a willingness to talk: “I’ll be 34 in the summer, that’s an important decision. I’ll think about it with my family and, when the time comes, I’ll also talk to the club.”
Like so many things regarding FC Erzgebirge, it remains to be seen what outcome these talks will have.