There was no winner in the pursuit duel between SV Elversberg and SV Darmstadt 98. The SVE still remains in third place in the 2nd Bundesliga, and the “Lilien” also remain at the top.
This means that the duel between the two best scorers in the second Bundesliga ended in a draw in front of 9,307 fans in the Arena an der Kaiserlinde. Elversberg’s Younes Ebnoutalib and Darmstadt’s Isac Lidberg have each scored ten times.
Darmstadt, which is now four games unbeaten, can go into Wednesday’s cup round of 16 at SC Freiburg with confidence. Elversberg, which has now been unbeaten for ten home games, missed the jump to second place due to the zero number.
Darmstadt with a strong start
The initial phase belonged to the guests. First, Lukas Pinckert was able to block a shot from Killian Corredor just in front of the line after some nice interaction from the right with Sergio Lopez, and a little later the ball hit the crossbar of the Elversberg goal.
After a nice pass from Lopez to Isac Lidberg, the striker suddenly found himself free in front of Nicolas Kristof and immediately took a shot, but the goalkeeper’s foot landed on the bar. And because the Darmstadt team defended very carefully, Elversberg initially didn’t have any chances.
Elversberg also misses opportunities
The first one only happened in the 23rd minute. Younes Ebnoutalib failed with a shot from 17 meters past goalkeeper Marcel Schuhen. And the “Elv” became stronger. Lukas Petkov appeared free in front of the goal, but instead of finishing himself, he put the ball across. Bambase Conte’s shot from the backcourt was then blocked by Patric Pfeiffer and Aleksandar Vukotić. A little later, Ebnoutalib narrowly missed a Petkov cross from the right and shortly before the break Marko Richter cleared a shot from Conte in front of the line after Darmstadt had been unable to clear an Elversberg corner. It went into the break 0-0 – in keeping with the performance.
Few chances in the second half
At the beginning of the second half, both teams neutralized each other, the game mainly took place between the penalty areas. Two secure defensive lines only allowed half chances and the game also lost some of its intensity. Just don’t lose, that seemed to be the premise of both teams as the game continued.
It almost happened in the 80th minute, but Ebnoutalib put the ball past the box quite freely in front of the goal, and Darmstadt’s Fabian Nürnberger and Corredor also had chances – but that was it.
Elversberg in Paderborn, Darmstadt against KSC
SV Elversberg has to play against SC Paderborn on the next match day on Saturday afternoon (1:00 p.m.), Darmstadt then awaits Karlsruher SC (8:30 p.m.)