Werder Bremen reached the second round of the DFB Cup with a difficult 2-1 win at FC Energie Cottbus towards the end.
Romano Schmid (43rd minute) and Mitchell Weiser (73rd) scored the goals on Monday (01.08.2022) in front of 20,078 spectators in the sold-out Stadium of Friendship, which will flush an additional 418,494 euros into the account of the promoted team in the Bundesliga. Tim Heike, who had just come on as a substitute, scored the goal in the 79th minute and made Werder sweat a lot.
Stage first on the bench
Coach Ole Werner offered the newcomers Amos Pieper (Arminia Bielefeld) and Lee Buchanan (Derby County) on. Jens Stage, who switched from FC Copenhagen to Werder for a fee of four million euros, was initially on the bench.
Claus-Dieter Wollitz, who has been working for Energie for the third time in his coaching career, even relied on five new players for the regional league. Wollitz set up his team in a 4-3-3 and let them attack boldly up front. This is one of the reasons why the game was balanced for a long time, even if the favorite had a good chance to score in the tenth minute. Marvin Ducksch, who predictably stormed alongside Niclas Füllkrug in a 4-4-2, hit the post after a back pass from Mitchell Weiser.
The next opportunity for the Bundesliga team came with a gift from goalkeeper Alexander Sebald, who wanted to open the game flat in a far too risky manner. Ducksch intervened, and Füllkrug immediately tried a lob, which the newcomer from SV Rödinghausen caught and made up for his mistake (28′).
Bremen dominated the game at this point, but due to the attentive Cottbus team, the shots were not very promising until just before the break. Then Füllkrug played a precise through ball to Romano Schmid, who gave his team the lead with his first goal in the DFB Cup.
Ducksch with second post hit
The second half began with a good long-range shot from Axel Borgmann, which just missed the Bremen goal by a hair’s breadth. In return, Ducksch missed the big chance to make it 2-0 after a cross pass from Füllkrug. He hit the post again.
After all, he made it 2-0 with a pass to Weiser. The goal scorer was in an offside position with the pass. However, since there is no video assistant in the first round of the cup, the goal was not checked.
In contrast to Bremen in the first half, FC Energie then accepted a gift. Marco Friedl carelessly lost the ball to Janis Juckel, who had come on as a substitute just under three minutes earlier and scored from a tight angle using the inside of the post.
The fourth division team, who put the favorites under a lot of pressure in the final phase, still had a good chance to equalize. However, Maximilian Oesterhelweg hit the ball badly on a volley.
Werder starts in Wolfsburg
The Bundesliga season begins for Werder Bremen with an away game on Sunday (07.08.2022) at VfL Wolfsburg. Energie Cottbus starts two days earlier with a game at VSG Altglienicke in the Northeast Regional League.