After the 0: 7 at Manchester City, favorite opponent Bochum seemed to come at the right time for RB Leipzig. But instead of making amends, the next embarrassment followed.
Four days after the Champions League humiliation by Erling Haaland and Manchester City, RB Leipzig also made a fool of itself in the Bundesliga.
At their actual favorite opponent VfL Bochum, against whom RB had previously won all eight competitive games, Leipzig lost 0-1 (0-0) and could slip out of the Champions League places on Sunday. In the current competition in the premier class, RB was eliminated on Tuesday with a 7-0 defeat in the round of 16 second leg in Manchester, with ex-Dortmunder Haaland scoring five times.
Bochum, on the other hand, are 14th after their second win in a row and suddenly have a four-point lead over the relegation place. Two weeks ago after the 0: 2 against Schalke they were still last. The scorer of the decisive goal was Erhan Masovic (48th). The Serbian defense chief scored for the fourth time in the second half of the season.
It was also the meeting of two coaches that is linked by an unusual story. In 2017, today’s Marco Rose from Leipzig was the coach of the RB Salzburg U18s and prevailed in the battle for the post of head coach with the professionals against Thomas Letsch from Bochum, although he seemed favored as coach of the farm team FC Liefering in the second Austrian league. Letsch then left the Red Bull empire and went to the second division club Erzgebirge Aue. Rose and he still get along very well and greeted each other warmly.
The Bochum team had obviously identified a specific opportunity: to attack Leipzig directly after the Manchester disaster and to increase the uncertainty with an early goal. After 23 seconds, Germany’s Japanese World Cup scare Takuma Asano shot on goal for the first time, but went wide.
The Saxons, who had changed four positions, were quite impressed. But they at least accepted the fight from Bochum and resolutely held out in the duels. But no one from Leipzig had the first – and only until the break – good chance for Leipzig: After a cross from Timo Werner, Danilo Soares almost scored an own goal, but VfL keeper Manuel Riemann prevented that (25th).
Overall, however, the guests acted too statically, there was too little movement in the game and there were too few passing stations. And so the sometimes around 70 percent possession of the ball was useless. Rose disliked that more and more, the coach became more and more angry on the sidelines. Bochum, on the other hand, really deserved to be 0-0 at the break.
And after the break it got even better, but it was frightening how easily Leipzig could be duped: Philipp Hofmann extended a long throw from Christopher Antwi-Adjei, RB keeper Janis Blaswich held the first header from Asano well against him second by Masovic he was powerless. Now Leipzig put pressure on, but André Silva missed the ball after Dominik Szoboszlai crossed the ball (57th). Rose waited until the 68th minute for the first substitution, then he brought on Emil Forsberg, who has scored in the previous four league games. Dani Olmo followed two minutes later.
In stoppage time, there were huge chances to equalize. But Riemann parried Willi Orban’s header just as well as Olmo’s follow-up shot and shortly afterwards against André Silva. Another shot from the Portuguese flew off the inside post and into Riemann’s arms.
Source: Stern
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