Running, straddling, winning: VfL Bochum clinched their first win of the season on the ninth day of the game. The new coach of the bottom of the table in the Bundesliga is making the right changes to the team after the debacle on the debut. Opponent Frankfurt, on the other hand, is annoyed.
The fans of VfL Bochum hadn't really warmed to footballer Philipp Förster until now. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that Philipp Förster had been a stranger to his new environment. And on the other hand, that he "anne Castroper" had to accept an extremely difficult inheritance. That of mentality monster and fan favorite Elvis Rexhbecaj, whose permanent commitment in the summer did not succeed. But Förster may have knocked the buck over on this Saturday afternoon. Just as his team had done. In a way that hardly anyone expected from the bottom of the table. Eintracht Frankfurt was played 3-0 (0-0). Right in the middle: Förster. He scored one goal (91st) as a cracking release for the pent-up frustration, he prepared two.
Bochum had 70 minutes toil like the miners once did in the city's collieries. They had run, they had straddled, they had fought for the courage they had lacked in the past few weeks and especially on the last matchday at RB Leipzig. When the new coach Thomas Letsch made his debut, VfL had shown its worst performance of the season. Which was quite remarkable in view of a 0:7 home slap on the 3rd matchday. Letsch was stunned. But not discouraged. And certainly not resistant to advice. Although he likes to defend with a back three, he allowed himself to be persuaded by the side to let them play in their practiced four-man formation again, as revealed by captain Anthony Losilla after the liberation against SGE. After the experiment at RB (0: 4), it probably didn't take too many arguments from the players.
So back to the system with which Bochum, under their ex-coach Thomas Reis, caused a sensation for two and a half years before nothing worked anymore at the beginning of this season. The reasons for that are complex. The squad lost massively in quality. The newcomers have not been able to compensate for this so far. But the posse about rice had an even greater effect. He is said to have spoken to FC Schalke 04 in the summer and asked for approval. He himself denied that. The trust was destroyed anyway. And finally the cooperation after the 6th matchday. VfL was at the bottom of the table without a point. Without the hero on the sidelines.
The heroes on the field, captain Losilla or goalkeeper Manuel Riemann, meanwhile, were desperately looking for the form of the past few years. Did you find them again against Frankfurt? The game alone cannot provide the answer. But it does provide clues. And they should encourage the people of Bochum. The second half in particular was strongly reminiscent of the games with which VfL had crawled out of the depths of the 2nd division and had become an attraction in league one in the comeback year. There was a lot of passion on the pitch and in the stands, a lot of team spirit and, the longer the game lasted, the conviction that we could make a difference going forward. Especially against this mysteriously passive unity.
Förster was always involved. Sliding tackles at halftime, the fans had also missed his physicality, gave him the self-confidence to direct after the break, even if he didn't succeed in everything. But where is that supposed to come from in this situation of the team? In this disorganized duel he kicked a lot of standards. Many botched in Revierstadion-Nirvana. But not a corner in the 71st minute. It first landed on Philipp Hofmann's head - and then against the direction of keeper Kevin Trapp in the goal. Goal scorer ecstasy. Ecstasy at attachment. The fans sang about their VfL, the "greatest club in the world." Finally animated again. Finally not expecting things to turn out well.
Goal scorer Hofmann, that's another type of guy that the blue and white team doesn't really know how to deal with yet. The striker came from Karlsruher SC as a successful second division scorer and was supposed to be a footballing upgrade to Sebastian Polter. He had given VfL a lot of energy in the previous season and also scored eleven goals. But technically it is limited. Unlike Hofman.
But the 29-year-old didn't make the jump to the higher league right away. Clever scenes alternated with plenty of bad luck. Now the reward, after he had been on his way to the unlucky fellow twice before in this game. With all his effort. "Today we stressed the opponent early on and quickly regained the balls. That's what we wanted too," said Hofmann, who was the first man to press hard. "The coach said to us: If you don't go flat afterwards, you didn't do it right." In the end they were all flat. "The relief is huge, the last few weeks weren't easy. But we showed we're still here," said Förster, whose umpteenth free-kick was deflected by Frankfurt's Evan Ndicka to make it 2-0. Now it should continue, next week at VfB Stuttgart.
The coach himself took his first three Bundesliga points calmly. At least on the outside. The 54-year-old from the RB school objectively analyzed the game, gave compliments and admitted mistakes. For example with the quickly corrected defense experiment. "That (editor's note: the back four) helps the team the most, which is why we'll approach the next games like that," said the coach. "The message to the team today was that we take the spectators with us, that everyone can see that we believe we can stay in the league. And we did that today. It was a great game from us and a deserved win. " His Frankfurt counterpart, Oliver Glasner, on the other hand, quarreled violently with his decision to also play with a four-man defense instead of the usual three-man defense. The Austrian's plan to take regular players like Makoto Hasebe (not in the squad) or Sebastian Rode and Daichi Kamada (substitute bench) from the team didn't work out at all during the strenuous weeks. Left-back Luca Pellegrini in particular had a terrible day.
"My formation and my change didn't work. I'm 100 percent responsible for this defeat," said Glasner, visibly annoyed. The bad mood of the guests was terribly irrelevant to the Bochumers. Losilla, for example, took his teammate Cristian Gamboa as an example. After a furious win against Bayern Munich in the previous season, he replied to a reporter's question about how to celebrate such a success: "Three points, three beers." The captain said on this Saturday afternoon: "Today we have three points and three goals - that also means more beer."
