Badminton Bundesliga

Simmering want to seize their chance for the play-offs

In the Badminton Bundesliga, WAT Simmering will be fighting for their last chance to make the play-offs on the double weekend on Saturday at leaders Pressbaum and on Sunday in Ohlsdorf. Manuel Rösler, who built up the team, will be following the matches from Berlin.

Manuel Rösler spent the last few days of his 25 years in Austria in a hotel before he stood on the sidelines for the last time as coach of WAT Simmering in the Badminton Bundesliga on December 22 in the 5:3 home win. "But only for the first two games, then I had to leave to catch my train to Berlin," winks the 43-year-old.

He is currently living in the German capital before moving to Düsseldorf in February. The moving boxes also contain a DVD of Rösler's favorite film "Fitzcarraldo" by director Werner Herzog with the legendary enfant terrible Klaus Kinski. "He tries to pull a ship over a mountain and manages it in the end. If you take that as a metaphor, then I didn't quite manage that with Badminton in Vienna," says the cineaste, making a bold comparison and taking stock of his involvement in Vienna. "We've come a long way in recent years, but I haven't quite managed to make badminton socially acceptable in Vienna."

Rösler's penchant for perfectionism comes through, which he lives out above all professionally - and takes himself to task for it: "In my private life, I often take it easier, I'm more Austrian. But professionally, I've remained German."