After a slow start to the Hinrunde, not winning any of their opening three games. The side went on a great 11 match-unbeaten run but a shock loss at struggling VfR Aalen derailed the former back-to-back Pokal winners a bit. Losing two of their last four games of the season.
F95 currently occupy sixth place just two points behind Karlsruhe who are sat in second place, an automatic promotion spot, with 33 points. However, controversial RB Leipzig are just two points beneath them in what is a very tight table at the top.
In order to make this a successful promotion-winning season, the North West club will have to improve their record against teams in the bottom half. So far, there have only been three victories out of eight against the struggling clubs. The saving grace of this is that their form against their fellow promotion contenders has been impressive; losing only two out of nine. They have also only lost two out of 10 away fixtures, so there are some encouraging statistics there.
The forward partnership between Charlison Benschop and Finn Joel Pohjanpalo has continued to blossom as they have 18 goals between them (10 + 8). Benschop, in particular with his physical presence, is a handful for any defence in the league. New loan signing Jonathan Tah from Hamburg has also been impressive at the back (the team have kept. Unfortunately, Ben Halloran has not been able to recapture the form that got him into the Australia World Cup squad last summer.
Oliver Reck, is still in the early stages of his managerial career, but it is clear that despite being a former goalkeeper he likes his team to attack. F95’s gung-ho style of play has seen them score in all but two games. Their defensive record is not too bad with seven cleansheets this season. But when they have conceded it tends to get messy if not very entertaining with high-scoring games. This offensive style of play has benefited them with crucial late goals like the winner versus Heidenheim and other fixtures. But has also cost them when they have conceded in the latter stages of games against Kaiserslautern, Eintracht Braunschweig and Greuther Furth.
So plenty of positivity to carry into the decisive Ruckrunde but Fortuna must start picking up more points against the ‘weaker’ teams and their home form could improve too. If they can do this then the Espirit Arena will hopefully be belting out popular anthem ‘Tage Wie Diese’ (Days like these) at the end of the season.
