Football – Turbine Potsdam is looking for a sense of success in the Bundesliga

When Kurt Russ is on the training pitch these days, he talks to his soccer players for at least as long as he lets them practice. The Austrian has been at Turbine Potsdam for a good three weeks – and since then he has been primarily concerned with getting the “restlessness and uncertainty” out of the team.

Karsten Ritter-Lang would also like to see a change in mood. “The euphoria after promotion is no longer there,” says the club president in an interview with “nd”. “Of course we are not happy with the current sporting situation, there is a certain dejection somewhere.” The sobering numbers after the first seven games in the Bundesliga: seven defeats and a goal difference of 0:25. Ritter-Lang has not lost his optimism. He bases his hope of “making progress again with the change of coach” on the positive nature of the new coach. »Kurt Russ is experienced enough to handle the situation. Above all, he is not negative, but also builds the team from a mental perspective. And that’s a good sign at first.«

Basic training

How much work this means for the 59-year-old from Styria can be seen in the Luftschiffhafen stadium. Nothing here on this autumnally cool Thursday reminds us of the summer joy and lightness when Turbine was promoted straight back up as second division champions with 17 wins. “Only two goals,” shouts Tony Heine. Russ’s assistant coach leads the goal-closing drills on one side of the field. The balls fly over and next to the goal, one goes in. On the other side is Russ, basic training here too. Movement and passes to build up play are on the program. He interrupts several times, tells and shows how things can be done better. “Quieter,” shouts Russ during the final form of the game. Then the whistle: “Everyone come here, please.” After a short discussion in the team circle, things continue, and in the end only three goals were scored.

“If the players make a mistake, they’re always completely exhausted, even though it’s training,” Russ tells “nd” after the session. But you have to make mistakes in training, that’s the only way you can get better. No matter how many times he has said it, “the self-confidence is still not there.” Russ doesn’t want to talk about the reasons, the past or his predecessor Marco Gebhardt, but instead wants to focus on the present and future.

Cellar duel

The home game this Saturday could decide how this season will continue. Carl Zeiss Jena comes to the Karl Liebknecht Stadium. The Thuringians were promoted to the Bundesliga in the summer with one point less than second in the table. Now they have already scored two points with three goals and are third from bottom. Potsdam’s president is trying to take some of the pressure off. “I wouldn’t call it a game of fate, it’s the basement duel in the first half of the season,” says Ritter-Lang. Coach Russ sees it similarly: »If you put pressure on it, it will backfire. You always need a certain amount of looseness.” But the coach has a clear instruction: “We finally have to score the first goal.”

Russ can’t promise whether this will work against Jena. Even during the practice session on Thursday, his players were still a bit tense, he says in the Luftschiffhafen stadium. The coach explains his approach, whether in training or on match day: “I simply want to give the players the feeling that I’m out there helping them.”

Time and effect

In the first two games under Russ, the changes have not yet paid off: 0:3 against SGS Essen, 0:6 in Hoffenheim. But there was hardly any time left, and in the following international break there was a little more time. Now President Ritter-Lang describes the mood as “hopeful.” Kim Schneider also noticed a noticeable effect from the change of coach. The 20-year-old midfielder can hardly name this specifically, but she feels “a new energy” in the team, she tells “nd” after training. The positive atmosphere on the pitch was definitely noticeable. Always cheering each other on and motivating each other, “staying positive,” as Schneider says. The trainer says: “It takes time.”

Success cannot take forever. “Due to the much smaller number of games in the women’s Bundesliga, it is much more difficult to collect lost points in the second half of the season,” explains Karsten Ritter-Lang. That’s why the home game on Saturday is extremely important. “The team knows that, everyone knows that,” says the club president.

caesura

For Turbine Potsdam, relegation was a turning point after three decades in the Bundesliga with nine national and two international titles. There were a number of reasons for this, President Ritter-Lang names one of the most important ones: »Turbine’s strength for a long time was always getting four to five players through the sports school into the professional squad, of which two usually really asserted themselves. This development has been declining in recent years. We are now in the process of bringing this forward again. Since August, Turbine has had a full-time youth coordinator in the club for the first time. “The goal must be,” explains Ritter-Lang, “that high-performing talents move up every year.”

Youth work is becoming even more important as the competition in women’s football gets tougher. “We are special because we are the last purely traditional women’s club in Germany that plays in the 1st Bundesliga,” says the president and adds: “That’s why we are very proud that we have managed to do so, so far To defy competition from the licensing associations.«

Cost development

This season offers a great opportunity to re-establish yourself in the upper house. Because the Bundesliga will be expanded by two to 14 clubs next year, there will only be one relegated team this time. “That’s another reason why we had to act,” Ritter-Lang explains the change of coach again. The sobering lack of success also made work more difficult in other, immensely important areas. “As president, you no longer know what to tell potential sponsors.” The club is financially stable, he assures. »But there has been a dynamic cost development in women’s football in recent years. You can see that in how salaries have developed.«

Karsten Ritter-Lang also wants female soccer players to be able to make a living from their sport. “But for this we need funds that go beyond the club’s basic financing.” Especially when the competitors are FC Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt, RB Leipzig, VfL Wolfsburg or Bayer Leverkusen. “Our many small sponsors help us across the street,” says the president, happy about the club’s loyal partners even in difficult times. “But with the really big ones, of which there are quite a few in Brandenburg, you always bounce back,” he reports. And that annoys him. »On the one hand, large companies that have settled in Brandenburg with a lot of funding, including a lot of tax money, do not assume any further social responsibility beyond creating jobs. All the money goes to the parent companies located somewhere else via profit transfer agreements. The other thing that really annoys me is the discussion about empowering women or more diversity. There’s always a lot of talk, but action never follows.”

Kurt Russ knew little about all of this when he set off for Potsdam. His experience as a former Austrian national player and World Cup participant in 1990 as well as a coach in the first and second league can help. He sees his first station abroad and working with female soccer players for the first time as a “challenge and an opportunity” at the same time.