Third league: TSV 1860 Munich loses in Aue

In his sixties, Marcel Bär was the top scorer in the third division two years ago, and on Saturday afternoon he was once again the celebrated hero. In the 86th minute he took a penalty, which he initially missed, but then sank with a header (88th). Two minutes later he made the final score 3-1 with a lob. “It’s very important that we gave the fans a nice ending,” said Bär happily, “we haven’t covered ourselves in glory in the last few weeks.”

On the field, Bär reminded the sixty fans of his best days in Giesing, and on the Magentasport microphone he also sounded like a sixty-something, because they hadn’t covered themselves in glory recently. But Bär is wearing purple today, he celebrated after the game with the megaphone in the middle of the Erzgebirge Aue fans, who celebrated the Christmas season with a nice choreography, bare torsos and lots of white confetti. Bär also admitted openly: “Sixty wasn’t the worse team today. We were just lucky too.”

You could say that: The Lions played really well and still lost away for the first time since the end of October. The team will now spend the winter in 14th place in the third division table after one of the best performances of the season. At least: In front of the 1,800 fans who traveled with us, the farewell for four weeks was quite amicable. Seven days earlier, the appendix had booed the players after the 4-0 defeat against Verl. Coach Argirios Giannikis said it “went extremely badly” today. “We played a very, very good away game, we controlled Aue”.

The offensive performance was all the more remarkable because it represented not only a strong response to the previous week, but also a strong response to a very early deficit. Another former sixty player, Kilian Jakob, had given the hosts the lead after just six minutes. This was preceded by a mistake by Florian Bähr. Shortly before the break he misused the ball again and then took a penalty, but the referee incorrectly placed the foul in front of the box. Bähr was substituted at half-time and replaced by Sean Dulic.

The fact that Giannikis chose the 21-year-old Bähr in the starting line-up instead of the 19-year-old Dulic, even though the latter had played well a week ago, is perhaps the only criticism that could be directed at the coach on Saturday. Giannikis had been questioned after the disastrous 4-0 home defeat against Verl. However, the coach can do little for the current plight of injuries in defense, nor for the poor conversion of chances on Saturday afternoon. He can’t even help it that Marcel Bär and Kilian Jakob no longer play at Sixty.

Coach Giannikis is considered a popular employee in Munich

Sixty became increasingly dominant after falling behind in Aue, driven by a strong Morris Schröter. The equalizer should have come in the 33rd minute, but Julian Guttau failed to hit the goal from a few meters and from a tight angle. Initiated by Schröter, the 1-1 was achieved before the half-time whistle, Maximilian Wolfram scored with a shot against the goal of keeper Martin Männel (40th). Leroy Kwadwo and substitute Dulic lost the lead (69th), as did Guttau (77th). It was three times bitter for Kwadwo after his own goal a week earlier, when he took the penalty towards the end of the game with a hasty tackle against Bär. Goalscorer Wolfram then addressed the main problem of the first half of the season: “We simply conceded too many goals.” Given that – there are already 34 – Sixty is rightly far down the list.

Even if Giannikis can hardly be held responsible for the outcome of the game in Aue, the club still goes into the winter break with a simmering coaching question. Before kick-off on Saturday, managing director Christian Werner said: “The coach always has my backing.” But he also mentioned that they would now analyze the entire first half of the season. With seven wins, nine defeats and fluctuations in performance that are sometimes difficult to explain, this analysis cannot be entirely positive. What works in Giannikis’s favor is that he is considered a popular employee at the office. And secondly, that Sixty basically has no money to pay another trainer.