Werder madness this time without a happy ending: In a goal spectacle, Eintracht Frankfurt showed the Bremen final sprint heroes the limits of the past few weeks. With the deserved 4:3 (3:2) at the end of the fourth matchday in the Bundesliga, the Europa League winner and Champions League participant celebrated his first win of the season.
“It was turbulent. It went back and forth,” said Eintracht goalkeeper Kevin Trapp on Sunday in the Dazn streaming service. The only thing that bothered him: “We concede too many goals.” “We make way too many mistakes. It doesn’t matter who it is now. I think we have to stop that,” said the central defender. “If you always have to score three goals, then at some point it’s not enough.” His conclusion: “The defeat was deserved.”
The league returnee and World Cup hero Mario Götze opened the scoring when he scored from 18 meters in the second minute (Trapp: “Finally Mario shot.”). For Götze it was the first competitive goal for his new club. “That was really nice. I think that was an important goal for us,” said Götze. Werder were only briefly shocked and temporarily turned the game around with goals from Anthony Jung (14′) and Leonardo Bittencourt (17′).
Randal Kolo Muani (32′) and Jesper Lindström (39′) made the turn again before the break. After the start of the second half, Djibril Sow (48th) scored Frankfurt’s fourth goal with a wonderful shot. Niclas Füllkrug’s converted penalty kick in the second minute of added time was no longer enough for Bremen this time.
“This is the Werder of yesteryear. spectacle,” said Füllkrug. “Unfortunately, today we had a worse ending against an individually strong team.” It’s difficult to win, “if you get four goals at home. So we have to stop that.”
Werder started with the tailwind of the spectacular victory in Dortmund, when Bremen went from 0-2 to 3-2 in the last six minutes. But Götze set the mood dampener early on. A lively game then developed between the two teams. Bremen got better and better: Jung got an unsuccessful attempt at clarification and drew with a direct acceptance. Shortly thereafter, Bittencourt, who was substituted off injured a few minutes, beheaded the Werder lead.
The Frankfurters seemed more mature overall, and there were always uncertainties in the Bremen cover. The Hessians managed to turn things around before the break and shortly after the restart, Sow scored the decisive fourth goal.
After 64 minutes, the Werder coach brought in Lee Buchanan and Niklas Schmidt – and about ten minutes later Oliver Burke – the three late scorers from the Dortmund game. But Werder, who still got a few chances, found it difficult to get back into the rhythm of the game in the second half. The hosts’ burgeoning hope of another Werder miracle after Füllkrug’s converted penalty was no longer fulfilled.
Most of the discussions in the already hectic 0-0 draw between 1. FC Köln and VfB Stuttgart were about someone who wasn’t there at all. Because Stuttgart’s goalscorer Sasa Kalajdzic was not in the squad. The Austrian, who was already linked with FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in the summer, is apparently facing a move to English Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers. That’s why, at his own request, he was absent from the final training session of the Swabian Bundesliga team on Saturday.
Three days after reaching the group stage of the Conference League, FC are still unbeaten in the league but have held on to a draw for the third straight season. VfB also drew for the third time on matchday 4, but lost the other game and are therefore still without a win. On Sunday, the Swabians were closer to success, but failed again and again due to the outstanding Cologne goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe. And on the red card against Luca Pfeiffer (56th) – of all things, replacing Kalajdzic. Because he was so upset about it, among other things, VfB coach Pellegrino Matarazzo also saw yellow and red (72nd).
“We have come to the conclusion that there is no point in taking him. Because he doesn’t feel free enough in his head to perform on the pitch today,” Matarazzo said at Dazn about the absence of his goalscorer. The ex-Darmstadt player Pfeiffer got his first start, but his debut ended prematurely after Timo Hübers kicked his ankle. In the fourth game, the Cologne team benefited for the third time from an opponent’s dismissal, but despite being outnumbered by more than half an hour, they didn’t manage to win their second win of the season.
Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart made five changes to his starting XI from a 3-0 midweek win in the play-off second leg at Fehérvár FC. “These are not changes in that sense, but in the sense of load control,” said the coach. Nevertheless, the guests seemed much fresher at the beginning and had three decent chances in the first five minutes through Wataru Endo after 22 seconds, Silas (4th) and Konstantinos Mavropanos (5th). The Cologne team also had to put up with two injuries early on. Mathias Olesen had to leave the field after 17 minutes, Jeff Chabot played on until the 52nd despite an injury sustained after four minutes with a bandage on his head, which was taped over and over again. Another injury on his left foot finally stopped him.
Cologne’s savior before the break was Schwäbe, who made two outstanding saves against Silas (22nd/38th). FC also had two huge chances to take the lead, but captain Jonas Hector, after a free-kick was laid by Ondrej Duda, went completely unmarked from ten meters in the middle of the goal (37′) and Mavropanos knocked Chabot’s turban header off the line (45′). 2).
