After the 1-0 (0-0) draw at SV Darmstadt 98 on Saturday (December 16, 2023), VfL Wolfsburg is back in the top half of the Bundesliga table and can look up rather than down. The Hessians missed a break in the relegation battle, although they were in the majority for a long time after the red card against Maxence Lacroix (27th minute). Lovro Majer scored the decisive goal (63′).
The SVD is still in last place with nine points, and the team was particularly harmless offensively. Wolfsburg now has 19 points and is currently four points behind first place in the European Cup.
Wolfsburg coach Kovac is relieved
“The victory is of course very good“said Wolfsburg coach Niko Kovac after the game on the Sportschau microphone. “We always play well, but we haven’t been able to score points in the last few weeks. We had to jump over hurdles again with the red card. Today the team played a really great fighting game.“
His counterpart Torsten Lieberknecht summarized: “The opportunities to score were there. In the first half we had too few players in the box. When we worked our way through, this little thing was missing: Where can a ball slip through? We weren’t awake enough.”
Wolfsburg’s Lacroix makes a serious mistake
As announced by the supporters, the fans in Darmstadt remained completely quiet in the first twelve minutes. The atmosphere was similar to a game in the lower leagues, where there are usually few spectators at the sports field. At the end of the 12th minute there was a mood in the stands, but the game was interrupted on the pitch: Darmstadt fans threw imitation coins onto the field, and a short time later pyrotechnics were burning in the Wolfsburg block.
Afterwards the focus was on the sport, until then nothing worth talking about had happened on the pitch. Lacroix made sure of this after almost 30 minutes, as he was the last man to lose the ball to Luca Pfeiffer and was only able to stop him unfairly with the emergency brake – as a result, he had to leave the field early with a red card. Wolfsburg then initially concentrated on defense, Darmstadt did not create any significant chances until the break.
Wolfsburg scores when they are outnumbered
After the break, Wolfsburg came out of the locker room better: Lovro Majer’s deflected shot flew past the goal to the left (53′). Nine minutes later the Croatian did better when he put Jonas Wind in the bottom left corner to take the lead. Darmstadt tried it and got better and better – the only difference was that they lacked ideas in the final third against the stable “Wolves”.
Darmstadt’s coach Lieberknecht then changed three times: fresh players came in with Matthias Bader, Fabio Torsiello and Frank Ronstadt. However, tried and tested forces provided the hosts with the best chance. Koen Casteels strongly parried a long-range attempt by Fabian Schnellhardt and Pfeiffer’s follow-up shot (77′). VfL then defended all of the hosts’ attacking efforts almost effortlessly.
Darmstadt against TSG, VfL meets Bayern
During the English week, the “lilies” are challenged in Sinsheim (Tuesday, December 19th, 2023 at 8:30 p.m.). The “Wolves” play at home against Bayern one day later (8.30 p.m.).