I love the elegance and technical sophistication of a Champions League game as much as the fighting spirit and the honesty of the emotions of a game in the lower leagues.

Yesterday evening I visited the game of the Offenbacher Kickers against the second team of Mainz 05 in the Regionalliga Südwest, one of the fourth leagues in Germany.

The Offenbacher Kickers (OFC) are one of the real traditional clubs in Germany, which suffered many defeats in the last decades. This began with the club not being taken into account when the Bundesliga was founded, when the hated neighbour Eintracht Frankfurt was given preference despite a recently poorer sporting position. To this day, conspiracy theories are still in the minds of many Kickers fans. More recently, the OFC was forced into the fourth division a few years ago after the club went bankrupt. Since then, the team has been fighting for promotion back into the third league and dreams of returning to the Bundesliga.

However, there was little evidence of this dream in the Kickers' game last night. The OFC team lacked everything that can be expected from a promotion candidate against the Mainz team, which has started the season with two defeats and no scored goals. False passes, poor ball acceptance and a lack of willingness to run were the rule, so that the Kickers were consequently trailing 0:1 at the end of the first half. 

After the break the team of coach Steuernagel managed to create the one or the other chance, but in the end it remained a disappointing home defeat, which the fans acknowledged with bitter whistles. With 2 points after 3 match days the team is now in the cellar of the table and will probably have to bury their ambitions for promotion at an early stage.