The Betze trembles at the dream return: After a four-year absence, 1. FC Kaiserslautern has returned with a 2-1 (1-0) win against Hannover 96 in the 2nd Bundesliga in the last minute – and their dreaded stadium right back brought to a boil.
“Oldie” Mike Wunderlich (11th) and last-minute hero Kevin Kraus (90th + 2) scored in front of 40,579 spectators in the opening game of the league for the four-time champions, who sniffed second division air again after 1522 days.
Lower Saxony, who were traded as promotion candidates, were particularly disappointing offensively on the Betzenberg and only managed to equalize temporarily through Havard Nielsen (80th).
“We want to destroy a little quality with mentality and take our fans with us,” said FCK trainer Dirk Schuster before kick-off on “Sky”, before the curve the saying “Lautre is widder do” could be read when entering. Accordingly motivated, the Lauterer appeared and offered a great fight, every tackle was rewarded with applause.
Whimsical punishes evil blackout
The passion was quickly rewarded: Terrence Boyd intercepted a completely unsuccessful back pass from Hannover defense chief Julian Börner and served veteran Wunderlich, who scored his first second division goal in twelve years with the pieke. At the age of 36 years and 112 days, Wunderlich replaced Wolfgang Funkel as FCK’s oldest league goalscorer after 28 years.
From then on, the people of the Palatinate appeared with a broad chest. With the prudent 2014 World Champion Erik Durm in defense and goalkeeper Andreas Luthe brought in by Union Berlin, FCK had the game under control, while Hannover barely got into the game under new coach Stefan Leitl. Above all, however, it remained heated, numerous interruptions hardly allowed the flow of the game to develop.
96 rewards late and loses in the end
Schuster, who only took over Kaiserslautern in May immediately before the relegation games, had to replace the injured new signing Ben Zolinski after half an hour. However, substitute Kenny Prince Redondo proved to be a constant source of trouble and had the 2-0 on the foot (40th).
Lautern was the better team in the second round as well, but missed the preliminary decision. Only in the final phase did Hannover finally appear with more courage and was rewarded by Nielsen. But Kraus fought back.