Efficient, but by no means convincing: VfL Osnabrück shot their way to second place at SC Verl on Monday evening, although the performance in Lotte was only as one would imagine at Bremer Brücke in the first half.
Against dangerous Verl players, who are known for their courageous offensive play, VfL was often lucky on Monday evening. The SCV sometimes carelessly missed the best scoring chances, while Osnabrück made ice-cold use of two of their few attacks, which in turn revealed the hosts’ weakness. “We don’t have our strength in defence, but we’re working on it,” said Verl’s coach Guerino Capretti on the MagentaSport microphone after the game.
This defensive vulnerability was played on well by Osnabrück in the first half, however, such as before the intermediate 2-0 for VfL. Sebastian Klaas, already successful in the cup against Freiburg, outwitted the entire Verl defence with a one-two with Ulrich Taffertshofer and then finished dryly. “Today it was the other way round than in the cup,” Klaas was pleased about the match luck on Monday evening, although he followed up with words of caution. “Verl made it very difficult for us. They were the better team in the second half and deserved the equaliser,” said the 23-year-old.
Capretti: “The hand has no business there at all “
His coach Daniel Scherning had also seen “a few scenes that we had to get through”. One example was Taffertshofer’s handball in injury time, which was overlooked by the referee and caused Capretti anger afterwards. “I think everyone saw that. The hand had no place there at all,” the 39-year-old remarked, shaking his head.
However, Osnabrück had already experienced games this season that were lost despite a better performance, so they are happy to take the 2-1 “Today we got a lucky win for once, we haven’t managed that before,” said Scherning, who saw a success factor in standard situations on difficult-to-play terrain in Lotte – which also paid off in the end with the 1:0. “We always wanted a mix of short and long balls. We knew that could be a factor on this turf. “