Last weekend, Moussa Doumbouya probably had his best working day yet at Rot-Weiss Essen. Although he doesn’t see much action, he is very important to the coach.
It’s stoppage time on February 3, 2024 in the match between Rot-Weiss Essen and SC Freiburg: penalty for RWE. And who grabs the ball? Moussa Doumbouya, who only came on as a substitute around ten minutes ago.
Many fans must have had the jitters before the penalty kick was taken. After all, the striker was not known for his goal threat or his precision in finishing this season. But Doumbouya proved his critics wrong and converted with ice-cold precision – 4:3 for RWE, victory!
The 26-year-old celebrated an emotional treble as scorer of the winning goal and his second goal – his first goal of the season came in the 3:1 win against Dynamo Dresden – of the current season.
And yet: Doumbouya, who has only played 681 minutes so far, will not be satisfied with his role as the current third striker behind Leonardo Vonic and wild card Ron Berlinski. After all, he joined RWE from FC Ingolstadt in the summer of 2023. He was also allowed to start the first five matches of the season – but he was unfortunate and missed several good shooting opportunities
Sometimes we switched to two strikers during a match, and he helped the team a lot – with a lot of power and power, which he embodies. Moussa is very hard-working, doesn’t let himself down and also does a lot of extra things with Slawo Freier. We are all happy that he is part of our team.
Dabrowski on Doumbouya
Coach Christoph Dabrowski reacted and made changes. He tried Ron Berlinski and later Leonardo Vonic. And yet: Doumbouya, who he already knows from their time together at Hannover 96 II, is an important player for him.
“It was no surprise to me that he took the ball against Freiburg and scored so confidently. He saved a few penalties in Hannover. Vinko Sapina wasn’t on the pitch against Freiburg, so Moussa took the ball. I can only praise him for taking responsibility in this situation and converting it,” said Dabrowski.
The RWE coach explained why the man from Guinea is important to Dabrowski despite his limited playing time ahead of the trip to TSV 1860 Munich.
Dabrowski on Doumbouya: “Moussa has shown from day one why we brought him in. He was very active in preparation, very agile, very robust. Accordingly, he started the season as a regular, but unfortunately missed a few chances. Over the course of the first half of the season, we tried out different constellations. Moussa fell into a bit of a hole from time to time, but quickly pulled himself out of it. It turned out that Ron is a great joker in these phases and Moussa was then behind Leonardo Vonic and Ron behind him. Sometimes we switched to two strikers during a game and he helped the team a lot – with the power and power that he embodies. Moussa is very hard-working, doesn’t let himself down and also does a lot of extra things with Slawo Freier. We’re all happy that he’s part of our team.”
After the winning goal against Freiburg and these words of praise, Doumbouya is also likely to feature at Grünwalder Straße on Tuesday – perhaps for more than just around ten minutes.