Last weekend, Moussa Doumbouya probably had his best day at work at Rot-Weiss Essen so far. Although he doesn’t get much game time, he is very important to the coach.
It’s the second half of the game between Rot-Weiss Essen and SC Freiburg on February 3, 2024: penalty kick for RWE. And who takes the ball? Moussa Doumbouya, who was only brought on about ten minutes ago.
Many fans were probably nervous about the execution of the penalty kick. After all, the striker was not known for his scoring prowess or his precision in finishing this season. But Doumbouya proved his critics wrong and converted clinically – 4:3 to RWE, victory!
The 26-year-old celebrated an emotional hat-trick as the winner and his second goal – he scored his first of the season in the 3-1 win against Dynamo Dresden – of the current season.
And yet: Doumbouya, who has only played for 681 minutes so far, will not be satisfied with his role as the current third striker behind Leonardo Vonic and joker Ron Berlinski. After all, he came from FC Ingolstadt in the summer of 2023 to strengthen RWE. He was also allowed to play from the start in the first five matches of the season – but he was unlucky and missed a few good chances.
Sometimes we switched to two strikers during a game, and he helped the team a lot with the power and strength he embodies. Moussa is very hardworking, never gives up, and also does a lot of extra work with Slawo Freier. We are all happy to have him as part of our team.
Dabrowski on Doumbouya
Coach Christoph Dabrowski reacted and made changes, trying out Ron Berlinski and later Leonardo Vonic. But Doumbouya, who he knows from their time together at Hannover 96 II, is still an important player for him.
“It was no surprise to me that he took the ball against Freiburg and scored so confidently. He took a few penalties like that in Hannover. Vinko Sapina was not on the pitch against Freiburg, so Moussa took the ball. I can only praise him for taking responsibility in this situation and scoring,” says Dabrowski.
Why the man from Guinea is important for Dabrowski despite the relatively little time on the pitch was explained by the RWE coach before the game against TSV 1860 Munich.
Dabrowski on Doumbouya: “Moussa has shown here from day one why we brought him. He was very active in the preparation, very agile, very robust. Accordingly, he started the season as a regular, but unfortunately missed some chances. During the first half of the season, we then tried other constellations. Moussa fell into a bit of a hole for a while, but he quickly pulled himself out of it. It turned out that Ron is a great substitute in these phases and Moussa was then behind Leonardo Vonic and Ron behind him. Sometimes we also switched to two strikers during a game, where he helped the team a lot – with a lot of power and drive, which he embodies. Moussa is very hardworking, never gives up, and also does a lot of extra work with Slawo Freier. We’re all happy to have him as part of our team.”
After scoring the winning goal against Freiburg and receiving such praise, Doumbouya is likely to play again on Tuesday at the Grünwalder Straße – maybe even for more than just ten minutes.