No Easter gifts: Braunschweig spoil SVE’s Easter celebrations

Everything went absolutely to plan for Braunschweig last Saturday: ‘When you win 5:0 at home, there’s very little to criticise’, Braunschweig’s coach Daniel Scherning noted on the ARD microphone. Robin Krauße (7th minute), Ermin Bicakcic (45th+2), Hasan Kurucay (80th/handball penalty and 90th+3) and Florian Krüger (90th+1) were the Lower Saxony goal scorers. The timing of the goals was particularly important, as the 2:0 lead before half-time in particular gave Eintracht the cushion they needed to counter Elversberg’s fight back – and even increase their score. Elversberg were forced to return disappointed to Saarland having conceded three goals after corners, another after a penalty kick, and one during play.

‘We made mistakes, and above all, at the start we were not as quick to react as we should have been. We were also very weak in the standard scenarios. Overall, today was a weak performance’, was SVE coach Horst Steffen’s summary to ARD.

After the game, all Steffen could do was congratulate Eintracht: ‘I would like to congratulate Eintracht on the game and on their overall development. In the initial minutes, I thought we would also manage to attack well, but that moment quickly passed. This was due to Braunschweig’s strong start, but also to the fact that our intensity levels on the pitch dropped’, Steffen noted, adding: ‘We also continually allowed counter-attacks by losing the ball, then made changes at half-time. We ultimately managed to start attacking again, but never made it to the final pass. Eintracht quite simply kept playing and showed conviction in their play. We also failed to hold the line during standard scenarios. Ultimately this was a bitter day for us, and a great performance by the Braunschweig team, who set the pace today.’