EInes you have to leave the “lilies”. They have had a good knack for finding strikers for years. Dominik Stroh-Engels Torflut once promoted SV Darmstadt 98 from the third to the second division. Sandro Wagner kept the SVD with goals in a row in the Bundesliga. Serdar Dursun whitewashed some weaknesses in the second division with a reliable to strong hit rate in the past three years.
What they all have in common is that they weren’t major players when they signed up, but more sporty and commercial bets that fit into the budget that they’ll be fine. Currently, two attackers of this kind have set out to continue the tradition that Darmstadt is a place that offers center strikers a livelihood rich in goals. Phillip Tietz and Luca Pfeiffer have already scored eight goals together.
What is also special about Darmstadt is that they go hunting for goals together. Head coach Torsten Lieberknecht has ordered them together into the starting line-up for three match days, which has since been rewarded with seven points and 12-3 goals. If the Darmstadt opponents have been able to rely on one thing for years, it is that the “lilies” act with a point. Now there are two of them, two tall, massive types.
Tietz, who came from the neighboring third division club SV Wehen Wiesbaden in the summer, is 1.90 meters tall. Pfeiffer, which the Darmstadt-based team borrowed from the Danish top club FC Midtjylland in July, even reached 1.96 meters. “The interaction with Luca is more fun from week to week. We harmonize better and better, ”says Tietz. The best example was the 4-0 home win against Hannover 96, when Pfeiffer shot the Darmstadt team in the lead and put the goal on his strike partner Tietz to make it 2-0 before the break.
“We are a true community”
Pfeiffer landed in Denmark via Osnabrück and Würzburg, where he did not make it to a regular place, but made three short appearances in the Champions League. The clear upward trend of the “lilies” after the start marked by the corona outbreak and sporting failures “shows the character of the team and that we have worked our way out of a difficult situation,” said Pfeiffer. Tietz also emphasizes how the bad news aroused fresh resistance in the ensemble. “Everyone is there for everyone, we grow closer as a team every week. We are a real community, ”said the 24-year-old, who scored twice against Ingolstadt and twice in Hamburg.
Despite his young age, Tietz is already an expert in how to move in supposedly oversized footsteps. At Wehen Wiesbaden he was supposed to replace the long-time successful goal scorer Manuel Schäffler and did well. After the career leap to Darmstadt in Hesse, he was supposed to continue the work of last year’s second division shooter Dursun there. So far with success. But because Pfeiffer has also stabbed so far, the Darmstadt summer mantra that the burden of scoring goals should from now on be spread over several shoulders has already been filled with life. Like Dursun, Tietz is currently playing a duel with Simon Terodde from Schalke 04 at the top of the scorers list.
This Sunday (1.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the 2nd Bundesliga and on Sky), promoted Hansa Rostock can prepare for the Darmstadt double top. It can be assumed that Lieberknecht’s front men Tietz and Pfeiffer will again jointly ignite a storm on the Baltic Sea.
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