Energie Cottbus
Rank: 16th
Preseason Prediction
: 18th
What was I thinking? Have you ever had a gut feeling that something was absolutely going to happen? In this case for me it was Cottbus being relegated. It’s no certainty, but that was my feeling before the season started and it remains unchanged. As you may know, I’m also a sucker for historical precedent and that doesn’t bode well for Cottbus. Every three years, without fail, for the past two decades they’ve switched leagues. That even includes their time in the GDR. It’s a macro-trend I can’t explain and unfortunately for Cottbus, there’s only one way to go and they’re halfway there.

Season High
: 1-0 victory at home to Karlsruhe on September 15th. Yes, Cottbus did beat Hertha (and Gladbach, but that’s no accomplishment this season), admittedly a better team than Karlsruhe. Yet in tight situations (like facing relegation) these matches effectively become six-pointers.

Season Low
: Well, I’ll go a little unorthodox here and say, “Every time Cottbus plays at home.” I’m referring to Cottbus’ attendance numbers, which you can see after the jump, that aren’t too pretty. For a league that prides itself on spectators, Cottbus sticks out like a sore thumb. Their average home game is filled to only 67.6% capacity which comes out to just over 15,000 people. That doesn’t even exclude away contingents who make the journey out East.

Why Cottbus Might Not Be Relegated
: Away from the not-so-friendly confines of the Stadion der Freundschaft Cottbus actually looks (and performs) respectable. They’re solid mid-table quality away from home, earning a respectable point per game, which would suffice for 9th in the table. As mentioned, they’ve performed very well so far against their bottom-dwelling neighbors on the table. In fact, against the two teams currently above and below them (Bielefeld, Karlsruhe, Bochum, Gladbach) they earned 8 out of a possible 12 points. Very respectable.

Why Cottbus Will Be Relegated: Somehow just having an old (non-Berlin) East German team in the topflight doesn’t feel right. That might have something to do with there being only 7 (including Berlin) East German clubs in the three professional leagues. That’s as many as North Rhein-Westphalia has in topflight alone. And there’s Cottbus’ problem, much like the GDR’s, of collapsing in the end. More than 2/3rds (21 of 29) of the goals Cottbus conceded this season came in final 45 minutes. Taking things a bit further Cottbus have scored 7 of their 12 goals in the first half hour while only conceding 3. While admittedly the squad is not as talented as others, this speaks to me of coaching and/or conditioning issues. The 2-3 defeat to Frankfurt epitomized this. After going up 2-0 in the first quarter of an hour, complacency kicked in as Frankfurt scored 3 unanswered goals in a game that looked all but in the books for Cottbus early on.

After the jump, stats and more stats.

Totals
Attendance – 121,917
Goals – 12
Shots – 175
Shots on Goal – 52
Fouls – 359
Corners – 55
Offsides – 45
Yellows – 33

Average/Game
Attendance – 15,240
Goals – .71
Shots – 10.29
Shots on Goal – 3.06
Fouls – 21.12
Corners – 3.23
Offsides – 2.65
Yellows – 1.94