May 16, 2020
There has been a lot of fanfare over the return of the Bundesliga, and
BT Sport announcing they will be showing every match live until the end of the
season. However, the first matches to be played after the resumption in Germany
were four Bundesliga 2 matches kicking-off at noon UK time. BT Sport also have
the UK rights to Bundesliga 2 but they have decided to only show one of the Sunday
matches, presumably to not detract anything from their frenzied build up to their
coverage of Borussia Dortmund vs Schalke 04 and the rest.
All of the Bundesliga 2 matches this weekend are being streamed by Bet365
so I have chosen the VFL Bochum vs 1.FC Heidenheim game as the one to watch. Out of
the 4 matches being played today, Bochum is actually a ground I have been to, visiting
in November 1991 to see VFL beat local rivals Schalke 1-0 with an 89th
minute goal from stalwart Uwe Wegmann. The stadium was a 41,000 sellout (
ausverkauft ) but we were able to buy tickets by visiting the ground the day
before and we paid 12 DM to stand behind one end.
The Schalke side that day
included Jens Lehmann, Steffan Freund and Ingo Anderbrugge but a red card with
20 minutes to play left them hanging on for a draw, which they were unable to
achieve. Bochum finished 15th that season, two points clear of
relegation, Schalke were mid-table in 11th, and VFB Stuttgart were
the champions that season.
The Ruhrstadion was one of the first purpose built football stadiums in Germany,
previously grounds were traditionally surrounded by a running track. According to Wikipedia, the
capacity has now been reduced to 29,299, but the large terrace behind one goal
is still there.
Today, VFL Bochum are struggling in the second level of German football,
in 15th place and just 3 points from the relegation zone with nine
matches left to play. They have only lost three times at home, but too many
home draws have proven costly so far.
On the other hand, today’s visitors Heidenheim sit in 4th
place just 3 points behind Hamburg in the promotion play-off place and 4 points
behind VFB Stuttgart for automatic promotion so have a real chance of their
first ever promotion to the Bundesliga. They possess a symmetrical 4-4-4 away
record.
Heidenheim is in Baden Wurttemberg in the south of the country and the
club spent their entire history in the lower leagues in Germany until they won
promotion to Bundesliga 2 in 2014. They have an all German squad apart from ex-Brentford Austrian Konstantin Kerschbaumer. Captain Marc Schnatterer has been
with the club since 2008 and has over 300 appearances, and the top scorer so
far this season is Tim Kleindienst with 12 goals
In contrast, Bochum only have four Germans in their starting line up
although the bench is all German bar one. Their foreigners include Arsenal
loanee Jordi Osei Tutu who has so far played 12 times this season and scored twice. Costa
Rican Christian Gamboa will be familiar to fans of West Bromwich Albion and
Celtic and Greek centre back Vasilis Lampropoulos has two international caps. Ex-Anderlecht
Congolese striker Silvere Ganvoula is the top scorer with 11 goals, Frenchman Anthony
Losilla is the captain, and Austrian Robert Zulj and Brazilian Soares complete
the stranieri in the starting XI. Serb Milos Pantevic warms the bench.
After an uneventful start, Bochum took the lead in the 10th
minute when Losilla beat the Heidenheim keeper to Soares’ curling left-footed
free-kick to head into the empty net. The goal celebrations were muted elbow
bumps.
For a spell, Heidenheim looked the better side without causing any great
danger, with the biggest fear for the absent Bochum supporters being the nervy performance
of their goalkeeper, who dropped a corner when under no pressure, and
unconvincingly punched away two shots which perhaps could have been caught.
Therefore it was slightly against the run of play when Arsenal man Osei Tutu
picked up a lose ball just inside the Heidenheim area and had time to control,
take a step and shoot into the corner for 2-0.
The second half drifted and Heidenheim rarely looked like getting back
into the match. Bochum missed a good chance after 60 minutes when Ganvoula was put
clear but he snatched at his shot and missed badly. Three minutes later though Ganvoula
atoned after Zulj’s delicate pass with the outside of the foot enabled him to
lose his marker and with a 1:1 with the keeper, coolly slid the ball into the
far corner for 3-0.
Frankly, the referee could have ended the match here as nothing of
consequence happened in the last 25 minutes apart from the referee twice
refusing to give free-kicks after a Bochum player fell to the floor, when
perhaps he may have been influenced to give if there was a full crowd screaming for a
foul ? Being able to hear the players
and benches, and there not being any crowd noise reminded me at times of
watching low level non-league football !
Heidenheim took advantage of the new rule and made all five of their
permitted substitutions, Bochum make only four, but perhaps an indication that
Bochum wanted it more was they clocked up four yellow cards to zero for
Heidenheim. And to use a bad linguistic pun Kleindienst did receive little
service, so was understandably substituted…………
So, Bochum eased their relegation fears with victory in a dull and at
times boring match. On this showing Heidenheim do not look ready for the Bundesliga.
No comments:
Post a Comment