One had to fear that the cute meerkats would not have brought luck to VfL Bochum. That would have been a shame, because the second graders of the same name from a local elementary school had sung their song “Here comes the VfL” so fervently and sweetly at the home game against RB Leipzig a week ago in the Ruhr Stadium that even the strict ultras in the east stand, who like sometimes insulting opponents, referees or police officers, devotedly chanting “Meerkats, meerkats”.
Now, however, it turned out that the Bochum footballers after the presentation (refrain: “Here comes VfL, Holtmann, he’s super fast…”) first lost 1-0 to Leipzig and three days later lost 2-1 to Freiburg retired from the DFB Cup. Before the second graders despaired, the footballers, the fans and the meerkats reconciled just in time. The 2:1 (1:0) victory against bottom Greuther Fürth not only brought the newly promoted team three points closer to staying up, but felt like several kilometers. And that despite the fact that the super-fast winger Gerrit Holtmann didn’t succeed much this time.
“No defense has ever been faster: Leitsch, Soares, Gambo, Bella,” said the primary school children’s happy song, although the young central defenders Maxim Leitsch and Armel Bella Kotchap recently had painful experiences. In the cup against Freiburg, Leitsch produced a bad pass 45 seconds before the end of the extra time, which allowed the opponent to score the winning goal and cost Bochum the semi-finals. It only took the 23-year-old three days to dry his tears and give Bochum a 1-0 lead against Fürth with his first Bundesliga goal (35′). “That goal was exactly what I needed,” he said.
Just half an hour later, his neighbor Bella Kotchap was in despair when he deflected a cross from Fürth’s Branimir Hrgota into his own net to equalize 1-1 (64′). It was the second own goal this season for the 20-year-old U21 international; he shares the lead in this statistic with Sebastian Griesbeck from Fürth.
“No more second division!”, the Bochum fans are already singing
However, the Bochum sympathizers only had seven minutes to worry among the 19,800 spectators before Anthony Losilla scored the 2-1 winner (71st). The Frenchman is also given a special mention in the meerkat song: “Quite sovereign in midfield: Losilla, our captain.” The soon 36-year-old took the line to heart. His goal with the help of Dickson Abiama from Fürth, who had just deflected off the field four minutes earlier, meant VfL’s ninth win of the season. They got 24 of their 32 points in their home Ruhrstadion, where there is always a particularly identity-forming atmosphere.
Greuther Fürth’s players lose hope of staying up in the league.
(Photo: Frederic Scheidemann/Getty Images)
The creativity of the Bochum audience for composing and handicrafts apparently grows with every success, because after the victory against Fürth, defender Leitsch was handed a large-format poster from the stands based on the model of a strength profile in the video football game ‘Fifa’https://www .sueddeutsche.de/sport/.”I’ll find a nice place for that,” promised Leitsch, who was born in the neighboring city of Essen, and was genuinely happy: “It’s a nice souvenir of this game.”
While the prospect of staying up in the league is dwindling for the Fürth team, who had previously regained hope with ten points from eight games, the Bochum fans celebrated their team with the optimistic prophecy: “No more second division!” As so often, coach Thomas Reis took this as an opportunity to put things into perspective in an anti-cyclical way: “We’ve got 32 points now, but we haven’t achieved anything yet.”
And yet the respectable cushion brings the club close to a certain level of planning security. This is also necessary, because seven contracts expire after this season and four loans end. Leitsch’s contract is valid until 2023, but Bochum would have to sell it in the summer in order to generate a fee. Or extend. Both are conceivable. At VfL they wouldn’t mind going into the future with the young central defender duo Leitsch and Bella Kotchap. Maybe the meerkats will sing another song to persuade you.