Is the 1. FC Nürnberg squad too big? Coach Klose complains that there is not enough width at the top.

When 1. FC Nürnberg faced Fortuna Düsseldorf at the beginning of December, it was that time again: Florian Pick, Tim Handwerker and Enrico Valentini formed a three-man chain. It was a pretty exemplary back three, the spacing was right, the coordination was textbook. Anyone who watched Pick, Handwerker and Valentini for a while noticed how well they have worked together now.

Only two things were strange: Firstly, that Pick, unlike the other two, is not a defensive player and was still part of a three-man chain. And on the other hand: the trio didn’t even stand on the field in shorts. They were wearing thick winter jackets and were sitting in the press box, fourth row, with a good view of the lawn.

It is now such a familiar sight when the Nuremberg reservists are sitting in the stands, almost as many as a team, that you almost feel like you have been transported to another time. One then thinks of the coach who often inflated the squads at his clubs to excessive size and went so far that he could only have known one or two players through hearsay. Then he had a hill raised and herded his players up what was known as Mount Magath. At the end of the 1990s, Felix Magath, 71, was also in Nuremberg. The club had just been promoted from the third-tier regional league, but got off to a false start. In September, Magath took over Willi Entenmann’s team and led them from last place to third. FCN was suddenly a first division team.

A good 26 years later, in December 2024, it takes imagination to connect the club with the Bundesliga. It wasn’t long ago that the team played exciting offensive football, but they have now landed again after their highs and have been waiting for a win for six league games. A low that draws attention to the Nuremberg problems – including where Pick, Handwerker and Valentini sat at the most recent home game against Düsseldorf at the beginning of December.

You can be sure that Miroslav Klose knows all three not just from hearsay, but actually quite well, but as an outsider you can easily lose track. Janni Serra, Michal Sevcik, Taylan Duman, Benjamin Goller and Kanji Okunuki have only had one place in the stands several times this season. Even Lukas Schmelzer, who was always in the starting line-up in the first seven games, was left out twice when Klose gave up his 20 places for the weekend.

Nuremberg has a squad of 32 players. League leader Elversberg only has 26

Nuremberg has a squad of 32 players. Only 1. FC Köln (34) and FC Schalke 04 (36) have an even broader base. Hannover 96, on the other hand, already gets by with 25 players, league leaders SV Elversberg with 26. The Nuremberg problem: The size of the squad creates dissatisfied people, costs a lot of money – and the nature of the squad is another thing. The club has width and peak, but not enough width at the peak.

The first eleven and one or two other players are so good that they could be the most exciting team in the second division. But outside in the stands the others are sitting and just watching how this team is playing less and less excitingly.

Klose also thinks the squad is “bloated”, but is still in favor of the size in order to be able to create incentives. An attitude that he also follows up with action by not even calling players into the squad. Nuremberg’s coach has justified this in several cases with a lack of training intensity. This now leads to the question: Why does the club have so many players that they would stand in line at the foot of Mount Magath when they only walk up at half speed?

As much as Klose uses the allocation of bench places to reward or complain about training impressions, he has little leeway when it comes to the starting eleven. In the past few weeks, Nuremberg’s coach has hardly rotated. After the international break in October, his team won 4-0 in Fürth and set standards. In the following games, Klose left the formation from the Frankenderby unchanged five times, and he only changed one position twice. In the eight games since mid-October, the starting eleven mandates were only distributed among 13 players.

Doesn’t that also mean: Klose would rotate – especially now that the victories are falling by the wayside – if only the squad had a certain depth and the players from the second row would impose themselves?

In principle, it is anything but a flaw if an eleven has established itself, but competition is essential even in good times. If it subsides, it doesn’t take much for worse times to come again soon. And that is exactly what happened recently in Nuremberg.

The end of the year against Eintracht Braunschweig is coming up this Saturday. It is expected that Miroslav Klose will change his starting lineup this time. Florian Flick could replace Mahir Emreli and be an additional support in central midfield. It would be his first starting eleven mandate since September. Since then he has played less than 60 minutes in ten games.