Unfortunate defeat

SV Elversberg leave the pitch as the losers after a wild game against 1. FC Kaiserslautern. But it was not the better team that won.

‘Spirited’ is how SVE head coach Horst Steffen described the match afterwards. ‘There was a lot of to and fro, ultimately too much fro for me’. ‘We worked hard to develop a lead and then constantly came up against a strong defence in front of our penalty area.’ Ultimately, ending up without any points may be ‘annoying’, but the team fought well and played a good game: ‘we definitely deserved a draw’. He is backed up in this not only by the statistics, at 20 goal shots (FCK) to 21 (SVE), but also by his counterpart Dirk Schuster: ‘It was a hard-fought game. From the back, at some points Elversberg had a better attack than us’, the FCK coach notes. ‘We were rather jittery and uncertain at times. Ultimately, perhaps it was not the better team that won, but the luckier one.’

‘You could feel the pressure on the team after the first two defeats’. The red devils took a fortunate and curious lead, but our Elv was able to turn the game around – but failed to convert this into a win. And so, things went as they often do in Betzenberg: spurred on by their fans, the red devils turned things on their head. Horst Steffen has no issues with his team’s performance. He sums it up perfectly: ‘I cannot fault the team much in terms of their fighting, running or playing. We already knew that it is possible to play well in the 2. Bundesliga and still not take home a win.’