Arminia Bielefeld bridged the Bundesliga break with a test against second division and East Westphalian neighbours SC Paderborn 07 – and lost 0:2 after a goalless first half.
Julian Justvan (75th) and Kelvin Ofori (85th) scored the goals for the visitors. Bitter for DSC: Three players had to be substituted with injuries. But there were also bright spots, such as the debut of 18-year-old winter arrival Burak Ince.
Arminia coach Frank Kramer gave players from the current second row playing practice, none of the starting eleven in the 2-0 away win at Eintracht Frankfurt was on the pitch at the start against Paderborn. “That’s the most important thing in these games, to get the boys playing time,” said the 49-year-old head coach. That included the second newcomer of the winter, Gonzalo Castro. After three substitute appearances in the league, he played 90 minutes against Paderborn. “That’s good for him, now he knows how it feels again,” Kramer explained.
Part of the story of the game is that Arminia was proliferating chances in the first half and was not very effective. This included Fabian Klos and Ince, who had two good scenes in front of the Paderborn goal but failed on each occasion to beat Leopold Zingerle. Otherwise, the young Turk was very agile.
“Burak was lively. Whenever he has the ball on his foot, something moves. He was on the move a lot, a solid debut,” said Kramer, who also knows about the weak points. “But you can also see that he still has to improve his robustness in the duels and internalise the processes. But that’s what games like these are for, so that we can introduce him. “
Early exit for Laursen – headache for Kunze
Early out had to Arminia’s left-back Jacob Laursen, but he operated at right-back against SCP. The Dane took a knock on his Achilles tendon, but Kramer does not expect him to be out for too long. “The change was a precautionary measure,” he explains.
Just like with Fabian Kunze, who crashed into an opponent and took away a buzzing head as a souvenir. Goalkeeper Stefanos Kapino, who was at fault for the penalty to make it 0:1, felt a slight pulling on the side of his body; he was replaced by Arne Schulz in the last ten minutes. Kramer expects all players to be ready for action soon.
While some key performers like Cedric Brunner, Patrick Wimmer, Masaya Okugawa and Stefan Ortega were spared and regulars like Amos Pieper and Joakim Nilsson were only pro forma on the bench, captain Manuel Prietl continues to be sidelined following his Covid illness. “It only makes sense if he has confidence in himself. That’s not the case yet,” said coach Kramer, who is also rather not planning on using the Austrian for the upcoming Bundesliga match against Borussia Mönchengladbach. “The hope is still there, but we have to look from day to day. “
Defender Andres Andrade is on an international trip. The 23-year-old will play three games with Panama in the World Cup qualifiers in North and Central America. The trip starts early on Friday morning in Costa Rica (German time).
