Watching him play, there is nothing spectacular about him 90% of the time. He has a remarkable economy of movement, occupying a narrow strip of the pitch just in front of the defenders, not tracking back, not pressing the opposition. For a player who scores such an incredible number of goals, he is not one who, like other great goalscorers (Pippo Inzaghi springs to mind), is always coiled and ready to burst through the defensive line, risking offside each time. No, not Micha Fuß. There is something even more frightening about his particular type of predatory instinct. Where Inzaghi is the T-Rex of the football world, the type of guy you absolutely know will destroy you from the moment he steps on the field, Fuß is a Velociraptor – you don’t even know that he’s thinking about destroying you until he has just finished destroying you.

Early in the first half, the Südring defenders noticed that suddenly Fuß wasn’t in his usual place. That’s because he had ghosted over to the right edge of the box to pluck a high ball out of the sky, and, from my privileged position right on the touchline beside him, it felt as though he quickly pulled a protractor and compass out of his sock, measured the angles to the far bottom corner and let fly with a wicked dipping volley that will probably stay in Südring goalkeeper Malte Spanier’s nightmares for many weeks to come. The calculations, however, were slightly off – the volley rebounded across goal from the inside of the post and out for a throw. Fuß didn’t react. No hands on head, no overt display of frustration. Just a jog back to his usual position.

Südring needed the win to stay in touch at the top but were finding it difficult to carve out chances, and the opportunities they did have were squandered by panicked finishing. At half time, the teams were locked in a scoreless draw, and the clear feeling was that if Blau-Weiss desperately needed the three points, they had a few more gears that they could step up. This was reinforced by more shuddering woodwork early in the second half – this time it was Ali Aslan with a shot from a tight angle.

The longer the game went on, the more one of the major Blau-Weiss statistics was debunked. Sure, Fuß is a remarkable player and clearly far, far too good for this level, but a one-man team Blau-Weiss is not. Fuß’ strike partner, the enormous Rani Al-Kassem, holds the ball up excellently, has a deft touch and a constant supply of positive reinforcement for his teammates. Aslan on the wing is tireless and tricky. Like any good team, they are greater than the sum of their parts: it just so happens that one players provides a large amount of that sum.

In the end, the goal came from the head of one of the shortest players on the pitch: Fahri Kocyigit’s glancing touch on a whipped free-kick was so slight that it might not have even made contact, but it would have been cruel to deny him his moment of glory after seeing his overjoyed celebrations for such fripperies as whether he actually touched it. It could all have been different, however, had a powerful headed goal by Südring’s Mathias Lemcke (second top scorer in the division with 27: also over a goal a game on average) not been disallowed for his overly physical approach just a few minutes earlier.

Blau-Weiss, if results go their way next weekend, could mathematically guarantee their promotion to the Landesliga with five games to play. To them, that is the only statistic that matters.

Perhaps this was because the first goal had just landed in the back of Frederic Löhe’s net. The tricky Maurice Müller had taken advantage of what my brother, who was already on the terrace, politely described as “shit defending” to give the guests the lead from a counter-attack. The away fans didn’t seem particularly interested – the small and predominantly youthful Wacker contingent stood around looking rather hungover behind a huge spray-painted banner which announced: SV Wacker Burghausen: The Club of Shattered Dreams. Having spent the last quarter of a century supporting Brentford, I’d dispute their exclusive claim to that title, but self-deprecation is always nice in football. Smoke wafted lazily across the away terrace, not the result of smuggled-in pyrotechnics but the coals beneath the slow-cooking bratwurst and steak at the guests’ grill stand. The Nordkurve banged drums and chanted – for them this game was huge. Burghausen were safe, their fans were pissed off about something or other to do with the running of the club, and they’d clearly had a heavy night out in Berlin on Friday. Surely their team could reciprocate in kind and drop down a gear – who needed the points more anyway?

Accordingly, Babelsberg began to gain the upper hand in the game. Hard-working Markus Müller hit the post and les bleus won a string of free kicks in interesting positions without being able to capitalise; the most dangerous was hit straight at Vollath in the Burghausen goal, whose awkward one-fisted punch made the effort look rather more dangerous than it needed to be. The atmosphere on the pitch was heated, with lots of petty challenges and bad dives, as well as repeated plaintive appeals to the referee Patrick Ittrich, who risked contracting arthritis of the wrists with the amount of times he had to gesture to the players to stop whining, get up and play on. I was slightly surprised, then, when he booked 03’s Kreuels after a nasty but fair collision with Omodiagbe, who spent some minutes on the ground needing treatment. This flowered into complete perplexity when, after a lengthy break, Ittrich brandished a red card at the inured Omodiagbe over by the guests’ dug out. Some Burghausen players steamed in to protest, while others stood around and shrugged listlessly at their Babelsberg counterparts. Apparently it was a second yellow for a dispute arising from his blood-stained shirt – at any rate, it was now very clearly advantage 03.

Straight away they set about trying to even things out before the half-time whistle, throwing everything at the guests’ well-organised defence without being able to break through. Still, as the 21 men trooped off into the changing rooms, I suggested that the second half would “resemble a shooting gallery”. This seemed a reasonable guess as, straight from kick-off, a long ball into the Burghausen penalty area caused confusion between the full-back and Vollath in the Wacker goal, the defender heading the ball over his ‘keeper, who scrambled back to rescue the situation. Babelsberg proceeded to pin Burghausen back inside their own half and try by hook or crook to crack the defence of the increasingly-besieged guests. Nonetheless, it was not really a shooting gallery, as I had predicted, because nobody was taking any shots. Instead it remained a mere gallery, with late crosses hanging like tantalising Picassos above the goalmouth before being hoofed away to safety by the grateful southerners. It seemed as though nobody wanted to accept the responsibility of letting one fly at Vollath’s goal and risking failure. Instead they ran themselves ragged trying to find some magic position that would suddenly unlock the guests’ defence, and failing every time

But I write this in retrospect, where this string of chance events now feels like the oppressive chains of inevitability. At the time, it still seemed as though the equaliser was on its way. Then in the 57th minute, after a sustained period of Babelsberg pressure, the ball was lumped upfield and the guests launched what struck me as a token counter-attack to give the impression of a two-sided game of football. “Bless them, they’re still trying with 10 men and nothing to play for,” I thought as Thiel collected the ball midway into the 03 half and promptly jinked to the left, darted into the penalty area and unleashed a ferocious drive that never looked like it was going anywhere else apart from the bottom right corner of the net. It was possibly the first time they’d broken out of their half since the re-start and they showed their awkward, over-cautious hosts exactly how it’s done. Babelsberg’s players sank to the turf as though they’d already been relegated, but they regrouped and and began a renewed onslaught, with the immense Süleyman Koç on the right flank fighting his way through time and again, only for the chances to be thrown away on skewed passes or overly-elaborate runs which ended in nothing.

A chap behind us began to yell the names of the Regionalliga clubs that 03 will face next season if they are relegated. Meuselwitz! Rathenow! Auerbach! he called out across a terrace which was becoming increasingly silent apart from ironic cheers and gallows-humour. The news was coming in that Darmstadt were winning and Dortmund II were drawing, meaning that the defeat would make survival on the last game of the season a near-miracle. Not least because Babelsberg will need to beat promotion hopefuls Preussen Münster – this Babelsberg side who lost mid-week in the Brandenburg Pokal quarter-final to 6th division TuS Sachenhausen. This Babelsberg side who were foundering against opposition who had nothing to play for and one man less on the field. This Babelsberg side who watched in horror as Cinar converted Aupperles’ cross from another counter-attack to put the guests 3-0 up in the 74th minute. They didn’t seem to want to kick-off after the third goal, tapping the ball morosely off the centre spot and looking completely demoralised. This lack of desire was duly punished two minutes later as Holz seemed to have all the time in the world to tap in from close-range to complete the rout, and the home fans erupted into sarcastic applause.

Danny Baker (!) once said that it is much more interesting to watch the reactions of the players who’ve just conceded a goal than the celebrations of those who scored it. Certainly a dispassionate anthropologist would have had a field day during those last awful minutes at KarLi. Löhe was helped off the ground by a team-mate and the game re-started, to angry chants of Absteiger! from sections of the Babelsberg support. Not even the final whistle put the players out of their misery, as they bravely – if reluctantly – opted to wander over to the Nordkurve, flanked by cautious stewards, to explain themselves to the fans. Whatever was said to Sergej Evljuskin clearly didn’t sit well with the defensive midfielder, who had to be dragged back by a minder to prevent whatever sort of physical altercation might be possible through the little square gaps in the security fence.

“We did everything wrong that we could have done wrong,” said 03’s sporting director Almedin Civa after the game, “now we need to light a few candles.” He’d better stock up on bargain tea lights at Rossmann, because not only do Babelsberg to beat Münster and hope that Dortmund II and Darmstadt fare worse next weekend, but today’s debacle also saw them blow almost all hope of finishing above the Hessen side on goal difference – they are now five goals off Darmstadt, and equal on points. The fact is that 03 will need a footballing miracle, and a spiritual makeover, if they’re to survive in the 3. Liga and avoid the likes of Meuselwitz, Rathenow and Auerbach next season. It certainly felt terribly symbolic when the banner that said Everyone to Münster – It Doesn’t Matter How was prematurely taken down during the closing phases of the match.

On my way out of the ground, I ran into the tall fellow I’d met before the game. “Why the hell did we bother?” he scowled as he hurried past. A good question, which all true football supporters must ask themselves at some point or other. Certainly it seemed appropriate for all concerned at the Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse around 4.35pm on Saturday afternoon, as I followed the trickle of depressed Babelsberg fans towards the station, past a few lingering, white-clad supporters of Bavaria’s Club of Shattered Dreams.

He was never flashy, never trying to make the glamorous thirty yard ball, never daring to beat his man with a drop of the shoulder and a wink of the eye, but this doesn’t make him a coward. Far from it, it is this that made Christoph Menz so brave. He knew his game and he knew that his boss knew his game. Unfortunately, in Köpenick at least, that game is now up. He laboured in front of the back four in the 0-0 draw with Dynamo Dresden a couple of weeks ago, constantly revolving on the ball looking for a simple option, but what Union needed then – and will need more than ever if they are to have a proper stab at breaking into the top three next season – was a more dynamic presence in the middle, someone with a glint in his eye, a dash in his step and not just the gel in his hair.

It was Menz I felt most sorry for as the players (and coach) who are due to leave Union in the Summer took their bows in front of a Waldseite that has rarely sounded so heartfelt said their goodbyes, but it was Daniel Göhlert whose name leapt out all the more. He was out last, after Kilian Pruschke and Marcel Höttecke, after Engin Yanova and poor, poor Felipe Gallegos (a man for whom sympathy is a default setting and not an exception). After Stephan Gill, and after Menz strode out one final time at the club he has represented since he came to Berlin at the age of 12 years old, Göhlert came out wearing his shorts. He would get a final ten minute salute on the pitch at least.

My life is a series of bookmarks, scattered seemingly at random, that help to remember where I’ve been and where I am now. To misquote Bill Withers, we all need something to lean on. The exits of Menz and Göhlert spell the end of an era for me watching Union. Höttecke was in goal for Dortmund II in the first game I ever saw in Berlin, and I can remember Göhlert scoring against Fortuna Düsseldorf (well, he was enough of an irritating presence in the box to bundle the ball over the line with the help of the Düsseldorf ‘keeper) in the Jahn Sportpark a year later in the 3.Liga, taking Union back to the unlikely summit of the league, but it is only after reading back through the next home game’s programme that I know that starting at right-back that day was Menz. Unfussily, the two of them have remained constant throughout my time in Berlin. They were chipped out of granite, ever present in one way or another, two unblinking faces on an eastern Mount Rushmore either side of Christian Stuff and Torsten Mattuschka. And now they are both on their way.

None of this is to suggest that the time is not right for them to move on. The side needs freshening up, and the sooner that Union’s post-Christmas malaise is over with for the season, the better. Against Duisburg Union were slow out of the blocks, with their minds long since on holiday, but the highlights were in Björn Jopek’s return to his waspish form of the vorrunde and the second half appearance of Stephen Skrzybski. Skrzybski was a menace as Union were reinvigorated, but one gets the impression he is still trying too hard to score his first senior goal of the season. He danced onto a mistake from Dustin Bomheuer, but his first touch was just off, he received the ball with his back to goal and turned beautifully, but just couldn’t get it out from under his feet.

The Waldseite delighted in the winning goal after Torsten Mattuschka had equalized Duisburg’s opener with a clinically dispatched penalty – a diving header from Christopher Quiring – set up by Kohlmann after fine work from Jopek it was a goal made in Berlin, . 2-1 woould keep everybody happy until the next season kicks off in earnest, and everybody will know what the Union line-up will look like for the big push on for a promotion that will demanded by Dirk Zingler.

Zingler’s face stares out of the front of the programme from the game after Göhlert’s goal against Fortuna that year. He is stood in front of a big screen at the 2008 members meeting, which details the goals for the coming season. They include the finishing of the first stage of developments of the Alte Försterei and a return to Köpenick. They detail getting the number of members to 6,000 and reaching an average gate of 8,000 for the season. Those bookmarks of his have all been more than surpassed and more. As Christoph Menz took a final look around the new stands he will have revelled in the announcement that the average crowd this year had reached more than 17,000, and he knows that his solid performances for the club have played a part in that. But as he remembered back to the old days he will also have known, maybe even with a pang of bitterness, that this is club with fixed ideas about the future and that he would no longer have any part in them. Uwe Neuhaus, as unsentimental as he is, will also have known that next year is a big one, and that the squad, shorn of its comfortable old keystones, will have to progress in the same manner.

On Thursday came the first of two back to back games against Lichterfelder FC, the quarter final of the Pokal before they meet on Sunday again in the league. The cup is the last chance BFC have got of ending their season on a high note, and that they ran out 3-0 victors was hardly surprising. They were faster, stronger and more determined, even without Björn Brunnemann pulling the strings in midfield. But still they were dogged by occasional doubts, and lapses of concentration. Their fans will be hoping that the tale of next season will be that of their better moments, moments of clarity and vision, moments of battling and pressurising the opposition, and not the moments where they switched off or where their nerves in front of goal got the better of them. Interesting needn’t mean that the opposition get let off the hook too often either.

Just after they had taken the lead with a 17th minute penalty, easily dispatched by Kevin Gutsche, there was a passage of play that summed up Dynamo’s season. The Sportforum pitch was glistening from the heavy shower that had just passed overhead, and the ball zipped along the turf like in a dream. On the left wing the weinrot shirted players knocked it about in neat, but never languorous triangles. The ball flashed between Wemmer, Scharlau and Ohlow with intent, with a hint of quick thinking menace that had been lacking before the goal, despite their dominance of possession. Kwiatkowski, the hulking centre back advanced, received another short sharp pass and absolutely battered a thirty yard shot, dipping and swerving towards goal. It was dangerous and neatly conceived, but not nearly dangerous enough. Where more patience would have prevailed, when they should have ripped into a reeling LFC, they looked almost too desperate to make another breakthrough. They failed to score, almost through their very eagerness to make the advantage count. It was almost as if they expected the worst.

A few minutes later, when running on to a delightfully weighted through ball into the box, Christian Preiss should have done better than shooting at the ‘keepers legs. It happened again and again, but LFC, fortunately for the hosts, were toothless, their main danger being posed from set-pieces – Lukoki Kalixto drew a great save out of Carsten Busch as he ghosted to the back post unnoticed, unmarked. Corners caused problems, but there were few clear opportunities for the guests.

The game was all but over when an ungainly diving header from Philip Saalbach made it 2-0, and then with just under 20 minutes to go it was 3-0 as Christoph Köhne bundled the ball home after another complete lapse of LFC’s concentration. Their squad had been decimated through injury, and they fought and fought all the way through, but Dynamo were clearly the better side. A decent shout for a penalty for handball in the second half was turned down by the referee who remained as impassive to their cries as the weed ravaged empty terraces ringing the pitch where a large proportion of the fans used to stand, but that now just sit decaying away in depressing emptiness.

It wasn’t pretty, but then it didn’t need to be for Dynamo, they just had to win. Since their loss on the first day after the ludicrously truncated Winterpause BFC’s chances of promotion back to the Regionalliga seem to have been scrapped for another year. They face another year of the fifth division, another year of the drudgery of watching other sides with barely a hint of the amount of silverware clogging up the trophy cabinets of Hohenschönhausen making their assaults on the summit of the division. They need to win this cup, for the money and for the exposure. For LFC it obviously didn’t matter as much. They will be fixing their eyes on the repeat league fixture as they battle against relegation.

The Chinese are right though, they always are. It is, of course complicated, and of course there is confusion and bitterness in equal regards, but despite their lowly position, it could be LFC that end up in the Regionalliga next year, as their members are soon to vote on the planned merger with BFC Viktoria – the side currently top of the league, and whom it is likely that BFC will face in a highly anticipated semi-final of the BFV Pokal in a few weeks. In the nether regions of Berlin’s football scene, the curse is that interesting times are always looming around the corner.

Two of this year’s main scavengers are Carl Zeiss Jena and BAK 07. The former sit in second place, eighteen points behind RB, while the latter is fourth, a further five points adrift. This game, therefore, was something of a bout of pre-foreplay foreplay for next season, as both teams will be expecting to be competing for that top spot should RB finally bugger off into the 3.Liga. Both teams, therefore, were actually really going for it, and Jena looked the most likely to open the scoring with some neat interplay by Tino Schmidt releasing Marcel Schlosser, only to have Dominik Kisiel in the BAK goal rush out to smother his shot.

The guests’ domination was halted bluntly by a penalty to BAK out of nowhere: Burak Altiparmak controlled the ball at the left edge of the area and was heading away from goal when he was clattered from behind. It was a silly penalty to give away, but Altiparmak’s penalty was poor and skewed wide to the right of the goal.

It was an open game full of chances – a welcome break from the staid, low-scoring, low-excitement affairs that BAK have often served up this season. Twenty-four goals scored in twenty-four games tell their own story, as do the meagre thirteen conceded. But tonight, watched by a large crowd of 619 (boosted by a large and loud visiting contingent), the chances came thick and fast. Sebastian Fries picked up on a loose BAK backpass and nipped around Kisiel, only to have his shot smothered by the covering defence. Then Christopher Blazynski watched a long ball drop over the shoulder of his marker and played a first-time cross-shot into the six yard box that Nicolas Hebisch was millimetres away from converting. It was 0-0 at half-time, but both teams were playing a very high defensive line, and neither were particularly good at stopping the opposition at getting in behind them: goals were in the air in Moabit.

The first came courtesy of Altiparmak when a long ball was flicked on in midfield and he got in behind the defence. Instead of advancing at the onrushing Tino Berbig in the Jena goal, he dinked the bouncing ball over instinctively over his head. It was a wonderful finish, and more than enough to banish memories of that horrible penalty.

Jena picked up the gauntlet that had been thrown down, and a bullet header from Marco Riemer forced Kisiel into a superb reaction save, getting a firm hand to the ball from point-blank range. BAK were sitting deeper and deeper under the waves of Jena pressure, and with a minute to play, BAK substitute Tunay Deniz was the beneficiary of the arces of space in the Jena half: with the goalkeeper far off his line and the Jena defence in disarray, he unleashed a thundering shot from long distance to make it 2-0. It was ballsy of the youngster: he had plenty of support to either side, so trying such an ambitious attempt on a promising counter took a great deal of self-confidence.

With Jena in disarray, Ali Avcioglu almost added a third, dancing around the keeper after pouncing on a poor backpass, but an infuriated Marco Riemer made it back in time to clear off the time. His angry roars were petrifying even from up in the stand, and had a clear effect on his teammates. Fries sizzled an angled shot into the corner from outside the box, but it was too little, too late: BAK held on for a 2-1 win.

There’s plenty to look forward to for next year: there will be a new trainer at the Poststadion – Union II’s Engin Yanova – and this young BAK team will certainly expect to be one of the top players in the league. Perhaps, after two years of no real competition, next year’s Regionalliga will be one to watch.

Where I come from, the sporting event is much more likely to be Gaelic football; here, it was the visit of first-placed BFC Viktoria 89 to play second-placed FSV Union Fürstenwalde in the Oberliga Nordost-Nord. The turnstiles clicked and clicked as the impressive crowd of 1,179 took to their places with some of the worst sounds the 90s has ever produced blaring forth from the loudspeakers. Kids with ice-cream smeared all over their faces scampered around the sandy terraces of the S-OS Arena, and the sausage sellers worked overtime to fulfil demand. A small crowd of ultras, one of them armed with a megaphone so minute that it rendered its own name deeply ironic, tried to create some atmosphere, but the surroundings just felt too pleasant and welcoming for any form of extremism, and the sun too hot for getting all worked up. Sitting and enjoying was the name of the game. The ultras therefore contented themselves with baiting the decent troupe of Viktoria fans, who chanted for their team more at this game than I’ve ever heard at their home ground. ‘Spitzenreiter, Spitzenreiter’, they hollered – a little misinformed considering their boys were only four points ahead, having played three games more.

The opening minutes were cagey as both teams probed cautiously. It therefore almost felt unfair when Sebastian Ghasemi-Nobakht unleashed a speculative shot from long range, completely without warning, that rocketed past a surprised Michael Hinz in the Fürstenwalde goal. The visitors were a goal up and the game had not even started in earnest, and the stadium announcer was clearly annoyed at having to struggle through announcing Ghasemi-Nobakht’s name again.

Credit, therefore, to Fürstenwalde for their focused and determined response: they spent the rest of the half dominating possession, but failing to create many real chances. An equaliser seemed inevitable and it came just before half-time. Roland Richter caught the defence off-guard with an early cross to the edge of the box, which Philip Januschowski poked home first-time. 1-1 at the break, and the smart money would have been on Fürstenwalde to push on from there, even considering the surprising number of unforced errors committed in their defence, which often allowed Viktoria a spot of much-needed breathing space.

But Thomas Herbst’s words at half-time must have had turbo-charged hairdryers behind them. Viktoria were a different team after the break, and took the lead after the ball fell kindly to Damantang Camara’s feet as Fürstenwalde struggled to clear their lines. The big striker didn’t panic and finished smartly. It was just rewards for his hard work all afternoon, running tirelessly and keeping the host’s defence under constant pressure – they never had a moment’s peace on the ball without one of Camara’s gangling legs grasping for the ball. They must have felt as thought they were playing snap with an octopus. The exhausted Camara was withdrawn soon after and replaced by Joaquim Makangu.

That was when the exceptionally pleasant afternoon was interrupted, and the positive comparisons with my hometown ended most abruptly. I heard the guy with the megaphone make monkey chants at Makangu, not once, but twice. Mercifully, his hateful ignorance was met with even less enthusiasm than his chanting (note, however, that it was not met with no enthusiasm, and there was not a single angry response from fellow fans who would rather not have such behaviour in the name of their football team).

With ten minutes left on the clock, Norbert Lemcke met Adrijan Antunovic’s corner with a flick at the back post. It was expertly directed, and ghosted into the net off the far post. Viktoria held out with ease for a 3-1 victory that sends them eight points clear – but with the caveat of Fürstenwalde still having those three games in hand. One can’t help but feel, however, that the men in green missed their chance in the May sunshine after that excellent first-half showing – they now face three away games in a row that may well end the comeback rush before it even begins.

On the way out, I bought a matchday programme from an incredibly friendly lady who explained to me in detail about the club’s relationship with their printers. She was lovely. Was she the exception to the rule, or was the racist with the megaphone the anomaly? I don’t know. Such questions make it hard to think about football.

The two teams marched on to the pitch, sky blue and all white, but the crowd barely raised an eyebrow, barely made a sound outside of the quiet murmuring and catching up from the nights and days before. But the music had already started – presumably this is the Concordia anthem – a battle hymn for the republic of this far-flung part of the city in another time, another world from Berlin. It blared out. A Germanic metal instrumental, guitars fighting for space, endlessly soloing over Wagnerian chords played out on a cheap synthesiser. Key changes constantly ramped up the mood, images of Norse Gods, raping and pillaging whilst double headed axes smashed in the heads of barbarians and peasants alike.

Meanwhile a blue tit flitted among the green filled branches of the quiet little grove behind one end (Liverpool have the Kop, Concordia, a copse).

Still, no matter the settings, a derby can hardly start with Beethoven’s sixth, can it. But it would appear that this is what was quietly meandering its way through the Einheit players heads, whilst Concordia’s dreamed of victory and Valhalla. The difference between the sides could be seen already in the coaches. Concordia’s Heiko Dohlich looked like a private security guard, black tracksuit bottoms, black T-shirt, black wraparound shades, always barking, constantly prowling his technical area in complete contrast to his opposite number, Thomas Mönch, lightly bearded with a friendly countenance wearing Sunday slacks and a blue short sleeve shirt. Concordia eviscerated Einheit, they demolished them. As the away side played a suicidally high line at the back Concordia would just simply win the ball back and hit it over the top of them, time and time again. They out-muscled Einheit in midfield and stopped them getting down the flanks. It was all too easy.

Time and time again that ball would come back over the top, or out over to the wing where Dominic Stehl, with a dangerously misleading schoolboy build and bookish, clumsy glasses to match, was seeing more and more of the ball. On the opposite flank, the Einheit captain and right winger , Norman Jechow was trying to raise his side above the languid pace. He grew redder and redder in the face, screaming at his team-mates, chasing around constantly, battling. It made no difference.

Concordia scored their first as the Einheit back line inevitably stepped up again. Lukasz Piasecki, with his back to goal, turned and released Marius Munser who was loitering on the shoulder of a dozing Philip Schenker. The trap was well and truly sprung this time. He slotted the ball away inside the far post easily and calmly past a goalkeeper who would grow increasingly unsure with every attack, increasingly vexed as to whether he should come or he should stay on his line. The distances between him and his defenders were growing exponentially as the clock lazily ticked over. It was 2-0 as Tim Schilling, unmarked, headed a long ball from the right from the back post back across and into the goal.

Concordia hit the bar and then the post before a glorious cross field ball from Einheit’s towering right back found Michael Schulze in a bit of rare, open space. It was to be their last real chance at clawing their way back into the game already, but it crashed back off the upright and was hoiked away to safety.

After half time it was the impish Stehl who took advantage of the sleeping guests. He scored twice in ten minutes, and it was he who selflessly set up the final goal too as he could have tried for his hat-trick, his second in two matches. The cutback was the better option though, and credit to him for spotting Andre Wenzel, just back of the penalty spot, who dispatched it sidefooted with ease.

That was the sixth goal. 6-0 in a derby is never to be sniffed at, no matter the setting, no matter the level. The Concordia players danced and bounced and screeched in a huddle in the centre circle at the final whistle as the Einheit players, knackered and disappointed either slumped to the welcome sanctity of the turf or just trudged off to the dressing rooms, their eyes already glancing over to the cold, cold beer and the sweet smelling smoke from the sausages grilling away in front of the club house. The scoreline mattered little for either side in terms of the league, this Bezirksliga where they sit in fifth and eleventh respectively. But there will have been many there, basking, drinking, snacking and smoking away to whom this was important. Even in sleepy northern Pankow on a Sunday afternoon, the awful sub-operatic rock was charged with a small sense of meaning.

Kousal took a long run-up and stroked the penalty to the right of the centre. It was weak, and Marc Stillenmunkes in the Viktoria goal had no great difficulty in parrying it away. Like Tony Soprano, Dynamo had their pivotal moment, and had missed that golden opportunity for the path to redemption.

From there, the encounter exploded into life. At times, it felt more like a game of tennis with the speed at which play veered from end to end, both teams aware of the fact that a draw was of little use. Although Viktoria are five points clear at the top, they have played three games more than second-placed Furstenwalde, who they meet at the weekend. At this point of the season, the pivotal moments come thick and fast, and joy or despair, as poor Miloslav Kousal now knows all too well, are separated by the thinnest of margins.

Still, it could have been worse for him and for Dynamo. With seconds remaining on the clock, Ümit Ergirdi broke free down the right, played a blisteringly fast one-two with Damantang Camara before whipping a superb cross to the back post. Norbert Lemcke, against his former club, was arriving in much the same way that Paul Gascoigne arrived against Germany in 1996, but while Lemcke, unlike Gazza, managed to make contact, the ball skewed high and wide. It was a massive chance, and Dynamo were lucky that the massive frame of Lemcke was just an inch too short to make the perfect contact.

As the final whistle went, both sides slumped to the floor, both feeling as though they had missed a golden opportunity. For Dynamo, surely now the chance of a late rush is all but gone. Viktoria are also in a tight spot: even if they win in Furstenwalde on Sunday, they still won’t have their fate in their own hands. The Brandenburgers are on a monstrous run of form: they have only conceded one goal so far in 2013, but will play an energy-sapping nine games in the month of May. Just like The Sopranos, the Oberliga Nordost Nord is set up for a thrilling finale, and no-one knows who will make it out of there alive come the final gameweek on June 9th.

Regular readers of No Dice will know all about Hürtürkel, dominating the Berlin-Liga in their first season after promotion with vibrant, pacey attacking football. They are a club that is full of hopes for the future. This Berliner Pokal encounter with BFC Dynamo seemed like the perfect opportunity to announce a clear message of intent and to show all of the Oberliga what will be in store for them should the ambitious Neuköllners manage to hold on to the single promotion spot from the Berlin-Liga that they currently occupy.

Alas, it was clear from the opening ten seconds that it was not to be. Hürtürkel kicked off and attempted to pass the ball around in their usual fashion. The grass of the Sportforum, however, is not like the smooth Kunstrasen of the majority of Berlin-Liga pitches. On longish grass, the ball just doesn’t move as quickly, and is subject to irregular bounces and bobbles that can deceive those unused to it. The Sportforum pitch is also massive, at least a couple of metres wider than usual on each side, which, again leads to an entirely different game of football to one played on a compact pitch.

Dynamo swarmed all over the visiting team, closing them down, denying them space and forcing them into error after error from the very first minute. They clearly did their homework on how to stifle Hürtürkel’s unique style, and the visitors floundered.

The result was a slaughter. Dynamo won 7-0, and chance after chance came from the fact that they simply knew how to play on a wide, expansive pitch. Miroslav Kousal and Christian Preiss always found space, either on the vast, unattended flanks or sprinting in behind the exposed defensive line. Hürtürkel are not used to playing teams with Dynamo’s levels of fitness, and seemed constantly surprised that they were never allowed any time on the ball. Onur Güzer, a player of excellent technique and vision and usually the fulcrum of all of Hürtürkel’s beautiful attacking moves, was far out of his depth and was substituted soon after half-time. The visitors had no ballwinner in the centre of the field – not even anyone to hassle or harry whatever Dynamo player was currently evaluating his options at his leisure.

Set-pieces were also a problem. Dynamo have a team of big, strong fellows who are not afraid to use their size. Hürtürkel don’t. The opening goal came from a poor clearance from a corner, and Christian Preiss caught it perfectly on the volley to send it sailing past Nihat Celik. The third goal also came from a corner, when Christof Köhne cut back a deep corner for Kousal to tap in, as did the fourth, a superb half-volley from Köhne, again free at the back post.

The second half was only different for the fact that Dynamo’s goals came from exposing a different sort of naivety. Hürtürkel found their footing somewhat, but every forward move seemed to leave holes in the defence so gargantuan that Cristiano Ronaldo’s ego would have passed through with room to spare. Preiss tap-in after counter attack: 5-0. Tobias Scharlau tap-in, handed on a plate to him by Preiss, who generously passed instead of seeking his hat-trick after dancing around the goalkeeper: 6-0. The best was saved until last, as Preiss played a perfect one-two on the edge of the box before rocketing the ball home to complete his hat-trick.

Attilla Caliskan had a curled shot on goal in the second half that Carsten Busch had to tip over, but apart from that, the Dynamo goalkeeper had as little work to do as Uli Hoeness’ tax advisor over the last few years. The big question for Hürtürkel now is whether this shellacking will crush morale, or, perhaps more pertinently, whether it illustrates that promotion might yet be too much too soon, and that another year’s experience in the Berlin-Liga might be no bad thing.

Dynamo will now play LFC in their quarter final, possibly with one eye on a potential semi-final clash with Viktoria. After this lesson (and Sunday’s excellent 3-0 win over L47), they’ll feel that they can take anyone on. As Hürtürkel experienced, that can be a dangerous thing.

After L47’s defeat to Malchower SV in mid-November, they went on a seven-game winning streak in the league (with two cup wins on the way to the Berliner Pokal semi-final thrown in for good measure), followed by two recent away draws. Nine wins out of eleven: not bad.

BFC Dynamo, on the other hand, had not won a game since a 3-0 victory over Waltersdorf on December 1st, and what had briefly looked like a promotion push petered out with three draws and two defeats so far in 2013. It can’t have been easy for the division’s sleeping giants to watch the other BFC, Viktoria, opening up a six-point lead at the top of the Oberliga, one foot already in next year’s Regionalliga. Once more, Dynamo are left competing only for the cup, with a much-anticipated last sixteen clash with the Berlin-Liga’s revelation team, Hürtürkel, coming up on Wednesday night.

The surprise, therefore, was all the bigger when Dynamo absolutely hammered L47 in their own backyard. The visitors were completely superior in every department, aided largely by the excellence of Björn Brunnemann in the centre of the field. The former Union, St. Pauli and BAK midfielder was simply smarter than everyone else on the park, and passed and tackled better than them too. His all-round superb performance was crowned by a goal of the highest quality. With the scores still level at 0-0, Brunnemann thrashed a high, looping headed clearance back at goal from the right edge of the penalty box. Poor Danny Kempter in the L47 goal could only flap forlornly at the missile that zoomed past him.

After the opening goal, L47’s lack of ideas was all the more brutally exposed by a Dynamo side that could now afford to sit back a little. Long ball after long ball was pumped forward, and the few balls that were played short were always looking for the diminutive figure of Lukas Rehbein, who was never given enough space to trick and jink his way into dangerous positions. His only significant contribution was a beautiful ball from very deep, a perfect combination of vision and accuracy to find Christian Jacobeit arriving into the box from the left side, Carlos Alberto-style. His shot, however, skimmed wide across the goal with Carsten Busch struggling.

It was only 1-0 at half-time, but there was something about that slim advantage that felt extremely secure – one never got the impression that L47 had any means of fighting back, or indeed that Dynamo would crumble. There were only 696 spectators enjoying the sun at the Hans Zoschke Arena, and the warmth and relatively uncrowded environs made for an extremely enjoyable afternoon – especially for the BFC Dynamo fans, who did not stop singing for the entire ninety minutes.

All signs were pointing to the second half petering out into a 1-0 win for Dynamo until Christian Preiss suddenly found himself with an eternity to finish under Kempter in the box. The L47 defence had simply disappeared, leaving wide gaping holes that demanded to be punished more than a repressed businessman with a dominatrix standing over him. Minutes later, it was the same again as L47 poured forward in search of a consolation. The substitute Tobias Scharlau calmly played and excellently-weighted through ball for Jörn-Andreas Wemmer to run on to, and the midfielder’s finish was of the highest quality. Kempter had rushed out to narrow the angle, but Wemmer expertly curled it around him into the far corner.

Dynamo could have scored many more – Preiss once more found acres of space and eons of time in the L47 box, but dragged his shot wide. In the end, it did not matter: the visitors had very clearly expressed their superiority as the formbook lay in tatters on the ground. Chasing down Viktoria, now ten points ahead of Dynamo, is still too big of an ask, which means that Wednesday’s clash against Hürtürkel is Dynamo’s only hope of glory this year. It is a game that promises a great deal, and only a fool would be so bold as to make a prediction.