SpVgg Greuther Fürth have done it and won a Bundesliga match at home for the first time in their history. Against Union Berlin, the cloverleaf ultimately won 1-0 thanks to a concentrated defensive performance and a standard and thus also ended their negative run of twelve defeats in a row.
Fürth coach Stefan Leitl made four changes after the 7-1 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen: Burchert (goal), Meyerhöfer, Seguin and Nielsen came in for the injured Funk (goal), Barry, Dudziak and Leweling. Five new players made up the starting eleven: Berlin coach Urs Fischer fielded Luthe (goal), Jaeckel, Ryerson, Haraguchi and Becker in place of Rönnow (goal) Friedrich, Trimmel, Khedira, Awoniyi compared to the 1:1 defeat in the Europa Conference League against Slavia Prague.
A chance on both sides
Union still seemed to have the match against Prague in their bones, because the Berliners obviously lacked liveliness and freshness at the Ronhof. This was particularly noticeable in the duels, in which the visitors often lost out, but the offensive play was also lacking.
The Eisern’s best chance came from a lapse by Griesbeck, who made an arcing shot and almost set up Kruse. The latter, however, failed to beat Burchert (13th).
Little going on in the first round
It wasn’t the best chance of the first half, by the way, as the Franconians had had one a few minutes earlier when Abiama had shot at Berlin’s goalkeeper Luthe in a relatively free position inside the five-yard box (7.).
That was all the first half had to offer. The Fürth team was very compact and managed to stop the Berlin play through the centre almost completely, thus taking the playmaker Kruse out of the game. Offensively, however, the SpVgg lacked ideas, so that it went unsurprisingly goalless into the break.
Köpenick’s visual advantages became even more pronounced after the break, but the visitors continued to lack any real scoring threat – despite Fürth becoming increasingly passive and withdrawing more and more.
Robuster Nielsen proves to be accurate
From the Franconians’ point of view, however, everything went according to plan, especially when Nielsen asserted himself very robustly in the penalty area after a corner and scored the 1:0 with his left – his shot was still deflected decisively (56th).
After the lead, there was only one-way football to be seen at the Ronhof. From then on, Union pushed hard for the equaliser and had a lot of possession, but the clear-cut chances were missing. Fischer’s offensive substitutions of Awoniyi (63rd) and Voglsammer (76th) did not change much. The only exception was Behrens’ header, which was excellently saved by Burchert (58.).
Fürth found themselves in a defensive battle in the final phase, but fought it out quite well. Even when Berlin unpacked the crowbar and almost only hit long balls forward, the Franconians were on the spot and hardly allowed anything to happen.
Because Gießelmann’s double chance (84th) lacked the necessary accuracy, as did Awoniyi’s header (90th), it was enough for the Franconians to get their first three points of the season – and their first home win in the 24th Bundesliga match at the Ronhof.
Both teams have to play on Wednesdays during the week: Fürth have the difficult away game at Borussia Dortmund ahead of them, Union the tricky home game against the in-form SC Freiburg – kick-off is at 8.30 pm in both cases.