Sunday 31 October 2021
League victory after cup spectacle
Gladbach has to tremble briefly after the intoxication
At the end of the tenth game day of the Bundesliga, Borussia Mönchengladbach also did the everyday task after the historic cup triumph over FC Bayern: The team missed chances against VfL Bochum and had to tremble briefly for victory at the end.
Exhilarated by the cup spectacle against FC Bayern, Borussia Mönchengladbach upped the ante with their first Bundesliga win in 24 years against VfL Bochum. On Sunday, the team of coach Adi Hütter deservedly defeated the promoted team 2: 1 (2: 0) and after two games without a win in the Bundesliga, they are back on the European Cup. In front of 42,361 spectators, Alassane Plea (12th minute) and Jonas Hofmann (40th) shot Borussia four days after the 5-0 gala against Bayern after 15 league games against Bochum again to a triple point. Danny Blum’s goal (86th) came too late. Gladbach last won on September 13, 1997 against Bochum in the upper house.
With the well-deserved victory in a one-sided game, the Gladbachers overtook their Rhenish rivals 1. FC Köln in the table after ten match days and jumped to tenth place with 14 points. The newcomer from Bochum, who had previously scored two wins, remains in the table with ten points.
In view of the recent negative experiences in the league, especially against supposedly weaker teams, Hütter had made his team responsible and made the cup coup the benchmark for the league as well. In fact, the Borussia coach renounced rotation after the 5-0 win and only replaced the injured defender Jordan Beyer somewhat surprisingly with attacker Plea, who last started six weeks ago at 0-1 at FC Augsburg. The Frenchman, who could hardly convince before this season, showed a strong performance this time, was always playable and dangerous in the continuous attack mode of the Gladbachers against overwhelmed Bochumers.
With his second goal of the season, the French crowned the one-sided early phase of Gladbach, in which they had almost 80 percent possession and pushed Bochum’s defensive and wait-and-see attitude into the defense. Plea also prepared the second goal. National player Hofmann slammed the ball from an acute angle on the inside post of the far corner and gave Bochum goalkeeper Manuel Riemann no chance. Riemann had been a celebrated match winner four days earlier as a substitute for substitute keeper Michael Esser for the penalty shoot-out against Augsburg.
On Sunday, however, the Westphalians also noticed the greater wear and tear from the cup game. Unlike Borussia, who decided the game against Bayern early on, they had been in action for over 120 minutes and the subsequent penalty shoot-out. Guest coach Thomas Reis tried again with two changes during the break. The disappointing Christian Gamboa and Gerrit Holtmann were replaced by Konstantinos Stafylidis and Danny Blum, who hit with a free kick shortly before the end and surprised Gladbach keeper Yann Sommer in his 300th Bundesliga game. It was exciting, but the fourth win of the season was not in danger, also because Sommer showed his whole class and parried against Milos Pantovic.