The gala evening was followed by a work victory. Borussia Mönchengladbach were particularly dissatisfied with the second half after their 2-1 win over VfL Bochum.
Stefan Effenberg and Andrej Juskowiak were the scorers as Borussia Mönchengladbach won for the last time in the Bundesliga against VfL Bochum. After 24 years and 15 winless attempts the streak was snapped on Sunday evening – but nobody at the Foals was entirely satisfied. At least not with the second run.
“We got into the game superbly and deserved to lead 2-0 at half-time,” said Jonas Hofmann, who had provided Gladbach’s second goal and even drew a comparison with the 5:0 gala against FC Bayern : “It was a similar game to Wednesday in the first 45 minutes.” While in the first period at least the efficiency in front of the opponent’s goal could still keep up with that from the DFB Cup, after the change of ends there was little to be seen of the Borussia that had been unleashed during the week.
Hofmann and Hütter with long lists of faults
“We were no longer as agile, no longer as eager to play, had many simple mistakes in midfield and many ball losses,” Hofmann listed on DAZN. And coach Adi Hütter also had a not-so-short list of faults: “Too far apart, not gripping enough, not poisonous enough, not creating enough goal chances, allowing goal chances at the end – that was not good.”
Why was that? Matthias Ginter could only speculate: “Although – or maybe because – we played a different system, I don’t know.” Mönchengladbach had started in a 4-2-3-1 instead of the 3-4-2-1 practised on Wednesday. The fact that they still managed to get three points in the end was also thanks to their goalkeeper Yann Sommer, who made a strong save in injury time against Bochum substitute Milos Pantovic to keep the game safe for a long time.
“If we concede an equaliser at the back, we’ll tear each other’s heads off,” Hofmann made clear. And defensive boss Ginter looked to the past. “That was totally unnecessary, we have already given away many points and today it almost happened again,” he summed up. “Today we were lucky in the end, but it shouldn’t happen to us too often.”
