Rot-Weiss Essen lost the duel against SpVgg Unterhaching and missed out on moving closer to the promotion places.
RWE lost 1:3 (1:2) on Sunday and remained winless in the third game in a row. Thanks to the success, Unterhaching moved past Essen and is now in seventh place, RWE slipped to eighth place and is seven points behind relegation third place.
After Felix Götze’s head injury RWE coach Christoph Dabrowski only changed one position after the 2-2 draw at Dynamo Dresden: José-Enrique Ríos-Alonso played for Götze.
Red for Berlinski after a serious foul
There were no notable goal area scenes in the first 20 minutes, but the first one was tough. When Haching sent a long ball into the Essen penalty area, Essen attacker Ron Berlinski went into the duel with his leg extended at head height and hit Haching’s Raphael Schifferl. Berlinski (21st) was shown a red card and the guests were given a penalty. Patrick Hobsch (23rd) converted this safely into the bottom left to take the lead.
It took Essen a few minutes to compose himself, but then he took charge. After successful pressing, Cedric Harenbrock (32nd) captured the ball just outside the Haching penalty area and lobbed it just over the crossbar. Despite being outnumbered, RWE kept the pressure on and equalized. A long ball from Torben Müsel came to Marvin Obuz (38th), who beat the unfortunate defending youngster Nils Ortel on the right of the penalty area and hit the far corner from an acute angle.
Unterhaching takes the lead again
Shortly afterwards, Essen’s Müsel (41′) hammered the ball onto the crossbar from eleven meters and his follow-up shot was deflected into a corner. The opening goal for Unterhaching came right in the middle of Essen’s pressure phase. Maurice Krattenmacher was initially stopped by Essen’s Mustafa Kourouma in the penalty area, but Aaron Keller (45th + 2) sank the follow-up shot from six meters into the far corner.
Even after the break, RWE initially remained the dominant team and kept getting in front of the visitors’ goal – but there were no really compelling chances. Instead, Unterhaching struck again. After a pass from Sebastian Maier to Krattenmacher (61′), he beat two opponents and hit the bottom right corner from ten meters.
The third goal conceded had an impact on Essen. RWE didn’t give up and kept looking for a way forward, but the guests now had the game under control and hardly allowed anything to happen.
Essen now against Uerdingen
Essen will continue in the quarter-finals of the Lower Rhine Cup with a game at KFC Uerdingen on Wednesday (7 p.m.), before RWE visits SC Verl on the following Sunday (4:30 p.m.). Unterhaching welcomes MSV Duisburg on Sunday (1:30 p.m.).
