The Arminia Bielefeld adventure began for him almost a year ago against Union Berlin.

Back then, on March 4th, 2021, it was enough for the East Westphalians at home to a rather unadorned, hard-fought 0-0 against the capital club, which was promoted to the Bundesliga in 2019, a year before the Arminen, and has been making steady progress since then - up to the first third of the table.

This Saturday (3.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) Frank Kramer meets the “Iron” again at the Bielefeld “Alm”.

After 34 league games in which the coach and his students who are willing to learn have collected 39 points across the seasons.

A yield that has always been enough to remain in the league since the introduction of the three-point rule in the 1995/96 season.

The optimism of the Bavarian Swabians, who were born in Memmingen, is also fed by the continuous point acquisition of their team, which was noticeably younger for the new season.

Kramer, who only got to know the Bundesliga during his flying visits as interim coach of TSG Hoffenheim (two games in December 2012) and as coach of newly promoted Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth, who were thrown back to last place in March 2013 with only vague hopes of rescue, seems to have a chance in Bielefeld to be able to use first-class work to recommend himself for further first-class years in the Bundesliga.

To do this, the Bielefeld team have to fight one of their seasonal weaknesses: the lack of consistency and effectiveness in the fight for home victory.

Only a complete success, the 2-0 win in December over Bundesliga returnees VfL Bochum, who have risen to power at home, after twelve home games with seven draws and three defeats, is too narrow a basis to be able to blow through after 22 match days.

The Black-White-Blues, undefeated six times in a row before the 2-0 defeat at TSG Hoffenheim last Sunday, tend to have a resounding effect in their away games with three full successes in Stuttgart, Leipzig and Frankfurt and another three draws.

There, the young attackers Patrick Wimmer, 20 years old, Janni Serra, 23, and the top scorer with seven goals Masaya Okugawa, who Kramer has trimmed into experienced ball conquerors, find the space to make fat booty out of opportunities.

120.08 kilometers per game

Kramer is working with great vigor and optimism on the deficits that he has to remedy with his squad, which has been freshened up at the beginning of the season and has undergone major changes in terms of personnel, in order to be able to stay in the class again as quickly as possible.

The 49-year-old sportsman, who works with the vigor of a ski instructor on the further development of his professionals who are willing to learn, belongs to the growing species of trainers without the urge to show themselves, who can keep their staff together with a cooperative management style.

"We're all happy that the guys have a top character," he says, "the unity they have comes from within."

The Bundesliga team with the strongest run, with an average of 120.08 kilometers per game, is almost always far from letting itself go even a little when it comes to their performances.

Why should it, when a dynamic right winger like the 20-year-old Austrian Wimmer, who came from Austria Wien at the beginning of the season, makes a name for himself as the team's best scorer with three goals and six assists, or the recently somewhat weakening Japanese Okugawa seven goals as top scorer.

Arminia is well-balanced in terms of quality in its comparatively small squad of 24 professionals.

The only thing that seems irreplaceable is the outstanding goalkeeper Stefan Ortega Moreno, whose contract expires at the end of the season.

It may be that the 29-year-old North Hesse will leave Arminia for the coming season, as will defenders Cédric Brunner, Amos Pieper and Joakim Nilsson, who will also be free transfers.

The Armine par excellence, the club icon Fabian Klos, announced during the week that he, whose contractual relationship with Bielefeld ends on July 1, will leave his heart club afterwards.

The 34-year-old centre-forward, who has been with the club since 2011, has scored 162 competitive goals in his eleven years at the Alm.

For years he embodied the principle of hope for better times in the club's constant ups and downs between the third, second and first divisions.

When he arrived in the Bundesliga, which the massive Lower Saxony had never dreamed of, he quickly felt that he could only keep up at the highest level with tireless commitment.

He drew the necessary conclusions from this this season and, like a far-sighted captain, declared in style that he wanted to disembark in good time.

But he, the 30-year-old captain Manuel Prietl and other older professionals such as the 34-year-old former international Gonzalo Castro, who was signed in the winter and spent six months without a permanent position after leaving VfB Stuttgart, are still needed.

They are chosen to provide the necessary experience on the way to the hoped-for stay in the class.

Kramer says in perspective: "If we develop well, we can do it so often that at some point we can say maybe four games before the end, we've reached our goal.

That would be a huge success.”