Rot-Weiss Essen fought hard to earn a lucky point against VfB Stuttgart II shortly before the end. Uwe Koschinat was happy with the 1-1 draw.
16,187 spectators came to the stadium on Hafenstraße on Friday evening to see Rot-Weiss Essen win. Okay, maybe not the 87 fans who came from Stuttgart. They saw a strong VfB youth team. The RWE fans will also remember such highly talented gems as Mansour Ouro-Tagba, Samuele Di Benedetto, Lauri Penna, Noah Darvich, and Efe Korkut, and will perhaps continue to follow their careers.
Because what the Stuttgart U23 team showed at Hafenstraße was worthy of all honor. Courageous, strong and dominant: that’s how Nico Willig’s team presented itself.
No wonder he found it hard to live with the 1-1 draw. He told “Magenta Sport”: “I’m not satisfied with the 1-1 draw. We played a great away game. We kept the opposition away from our goal for 87 minutes. There were no critical situations in front of our goal. That was strong. Unfortunately, only until the 87th minute.”
That was an incredibly exhausting game for us. We were dominated in many areas. It was very tiring for the team to constantly chase after Stuttgart during their many long periods of possession. A point like this is definitely worth something at this stage of the season.
Uwe Koschinat
Uwe Koschinat was satisfied with the final phase of the game, however, as he once again proved his knack for making the right substitutions with the introduction of Marek Janssen. First, Ahmet Arslan missed a penalty, and then Janssen converted a cross to make it 1-1 – his third goal as a substitute and Essen’s twelfth goal of the season from the bench.
Unlike Willig, Koschinat was very happy with the 1-1 draw. The RWE coach also had to acknowledge Stuttgart’s dominance. “It was an incredibly exhausting game for us. We were dominated in many areas. It was very tiring for the team to constantly chase after Stuttgart during their many long periods of possession. A point like this is definitely worth something at this stage of the season,“ Koschinat noted. Felix Wienand, who replaced the ill Jakob Golz, received special praise: ”He played very strongly in many situations. He only found out in the morning that he would be playing. That was really impressive.”