Newcomers Rot-Weiss Essen celebrated their long-awaited first win of the season in the basement duel against Erzgebirge Aue and left the bottom of the table.
RWE won 2-1 (1-0) at the start of the 7th matchday of the 3rd division on Friday evening and passed Aue to 13th place.
Essen started the game with first-choice goalkeeper Jakob Golz, who returned to the box after recovering from injury. Newcomer Felix Götze was also in the starting XI, as was Clemens Fandrich, who moved to Essen in the Aue summer.
Bastians hits the head
In front of 16,070 spectators on Essen’s Hafenstrasse, the home side gained a lot of possession in the first few minutes, but soon lost control and allowed the guests to score a few shots. RWE goalkeeper Golz was able to fend off an initial dangerous shot by Maxi Thiel with difficulty (9′). A header from Steffen Nkansah after a corner went over the Essen goal (13′). After a quarter of an hour, RWE recovered and regained control of the game. The home side didn’t become dangerous from the game, but they did in a standard situation. Engelmann headed a free-kick cross from Niklas Tarnat on the second post in front of the goal, where Felix Bastians made it 1-0 with a header (23rd).
Essen then controlled what happened. Aue posed another threat with a free-kick from Anthony Barylla, but Golz saved it safely (33′). On the other side, Fandrich finished after a corner, but missed clearly (34′). In the 42nd minute, Engelmann had the 2:0 on his foot, but failed with his shot from the turn by the strongly reacting Philipp Klewin in the Aue goal. Shortly thereafter, Isaiah Young just missed with a shot to the near corner (43rd).
Rios-Alonso responds to Schreck’s equalizer
The guests came out of the break with a lot of momentum, but were initially not dangerous in front of the Essen goal until the equalizer came in the 55th minute. After a long throw-in, two players from Auer extended the ball to Sam Schreck, who scored from 15 meters to make it 1-1. After Fandrich narrowly missed making it 2-1 in the 63rd minute, José-Enrique Rios-Alonso restored the lead a few seconds later. Klewin was only able to parry an Engelmann shot forward and the Essen defender scored in the follow-up shot.
Only three minutes later, Engelmann missed the big chance to score the third RWE goal (66′) when he failed to counterattack against Klewin. The Essen striker hit the ball with his hand and saw a yellow card for it. Aue tried to equalize again in the period that followed, but rarely came close to the Essen goal. Only in the 85th minute did Thiel put an Auer exclamation mark on the crossbar with a shot from 16 meters. The guests threw everything forward again in the final phase, but couldn’t make it 2:2.
Away in Osnabrueck
RWE will continue next Friday (09.09.2022/7 p.m.) with an away game at VfL Osnabrück.
