Defeat for SV Elversberg in top match against Paderborn
In a game of equals, SC Paderborn proved to be the more mature team and gained a well-deserved 1:3 victory over SV Elversberg. SVE coach Horst Steffen viewed this as a fair defeat – that left a bad taste in the mouth.
SV Elversberg lost their highly anticipated duel against table leaders SC Paderborn 07. In front of 8,922 fans in the URSAPHARM Arena on Kaiserlinde, the scoreboard after 90 minutes stood at 1:3 (1:1). But one thing at a time. Coach Horst Steffen only made one change to the starting lineup, with Lukas Petkov replacing Manuel Feil on the right wing. Other than this, the SVE coach called up the same team that recently celebrated a 2:0 win in Düsseldorf. Florian Le Joncour was back on the bench after a long period away due to injury but Robin Fellhauer and Semih Sahin remain injured. The away team’s coach Lukas Kwasniok, on the other hand, changed up four positions from their 3:2 win against 1. FC Nürnberg: Sven Michel, Adriano Grimaldi, Tjark Scheller and Luis Engelns were replaced by Laurin Curda, Mika Joel Baur, Koen Kostons and Ilyas Ansah in the starting eleven.
Elversberg gained their first major opportunity shortly after referee Nicolas Winter’s starting whistle: following a lovely attack down the right, Elias Baum sent a half-height cross into the back of the Paderborn defence, from where Tom Zimmerschied’s skilful side-footed shot narrowly missed the goal. But anyone who thought that Elversberg would dominate the match was left disappointed: the away team gained ball possession and control of play, although for a long time they were unable to create any opportunities to threaten the compact SVE defence. Paderborn’s first opportunity was not until the 19th minute, when Ansah took a cross from Kostons and headed it just wide of the left post. SVE allowed the away team to keep the ball in their half and attempted to score with quick counter-attacks. This plan worked in the 27th minute: after an attack down the right flank, Lukas Petkov broke through to the penalty area but was thwarted by SCP’s goalkeeper Markus Schubert. The rebound landed by Maurice Neubauer, who sent the ball off on a cross. Muhammed Damar picked it up, shot and scored (thanks to a crucial deflection) to put things at 1:0 to Elversberg.
The match became livelier, with lots of back and forth up until half time. Just as spectators were expecting Elversberg to head into the break in the lead, the away team struck: Laurin Curda headed in a corner in the third minute of injury time to equalise to 1:1. ‘We knew exactly what they were doing with set pieces, but we couldn’t prevent their goals. That’s annoying’, SVE’s captain Carlo Sickinger said after the match. This was particularly controversial, as Curda should in fact have been sent off with a double yellow card. ‘In my view, that was a double yellow. Curda should have been off the pitch, and unable to score the goal – meaning that we would have headed into the second half in the lead. The game would have gone rather differently’, sports director Ole Book complained. Curda acknowledged: ‘I’m not sure if I should have been shown a yellow card for my first foul. And then, getting a double yellow for the second foul would have been somewhat excessive.’ Paderborn’s coach Lukas Kwasniok substituted Curda off as a precautionary measure at half time, saying: ‘It is a matter of interpretation. If I was at Elversberg, I might have wanted it that way. I was able to live with the decision.’ SVE’s coach Steffen added with a smile: ‘I wasn’t.’
The equaliser before the break put a dampener on things, but at half time I still felt that the boys wanted to crank things up to get the job done.
Horst Steffen
The first opportunity of the second half once again went to the away team: in the 55th minute, Zehnter hit a cross into the penalty area, where Bilbija tried to slip a header past a magnificently responsive Nicolas Kristof. However, some ten minutes later, Elversberg’s keeper was beaten to the punch: Kostons took advantage of setup by Obermair and Bilbija to land the ball in the bottom left corner from the penalty area (64th minute). This was a particularly bitter blow for SVE: at this point, the team only had ten players on the pitch due to Carlo Sickinger suffering an injury. The away team coolly exploited their greater numbers whilst coach Steffen was preparing the substitution. Elversberg then tried to fight their way back into the game, but were unable to break through Paderborn’s strong defence. The final scoreline was ultimately secured by Calvin Brackelmann in the 80th minute, when he scored on a rebound to put things at 3:1. The away team confidently closed out the result, whilst Elversberg were unable to tap any more opportunities.
The set pieces were key, and Paderborn dominated these. ‘If you want to score a few more points, you need to up your game in the set pieces. We therefore made significant changes to our formation’, was Kwasniok’s analysis. Steffen agreed: ‘Paderborn are ahead of us on set pieces, we are working on it.’ After the final whistle, Kwasniok sounded satisfied: ‘Looking at the 90 minutes as a whole, we deserved to win. In the second half, we closed down the centre even better to block the ball and stop Elversberg’s four strong strikers from breaking through. After 2:1, we put in a very compact defensive performance and prevented our opponents from gaining any major opportunities.’ Steffen, on the other hand, was less satisfied, particularly with the late equaliser before half time: ‘The equaliser before the break put a dampener on things, but at half time I still felt that the boys wanted to crank things up to get the job done. However, it became difficult after we went 1:2 down. Paderborn made no mistakes – we had very few situations, and Paderborn defended very reliably and cleanly.’ Ultimately, Steffen felt that this was a deserved defeat: ‘Given the opportunities we had, we deserved to lose the game.’ The aim now is to focus on the next match: on Friday, SVE will be seeking to settle the score with a home game against 1. FC Nürnberg.