Minutes after his 1. FC Magdeburg lost 3-2 (1:2) at Hertha BSC, Baris Atik, who had captained the team, wavered somewhere between anger, disappointment and resignation. "I just expected that after two games where we did well, it would click and we'd get it. But we fell back into our old pattern," explained the goalscorer when Magdeburg took a 1:0 lead.
The old patterns are the individual mistakes that have plagued the Elbe club all season and cost them points time and time again. Against Hertha on Friday evening, it was three of them that caused the goals conceded and brought an astonishingly passive opponent back into the game and then onto the winning track.
If you look at Magdeburg's defeats, individual blunders have already cost them at least eight points this season. Points that would have catapulted FCM much closer to the goal of staying in the league and the "carefree further development" originally proclaimed by sporting director Otmar Schork. The problem: time and again, another professional fails to perform, and a simple personnel change is not enough.
