Hallescher FC go into the winter break with two defeats. After losing 3-2 at Rot-Weiss Essen, the HFC coach was angry.

Hallescher FC spent a bitter few days in the Ruhr area. On Saturday, the club from Saxony-Anhalt lost 2-1 at Borussia Dortmund II.

The HFC decided against the 500-kilometer trip home and stayed in North Rhine-Westphalia. In Velbert, coach Sreto Ristic’s team prepared for Tuesday’s game at Rot-Weiss Essen. The HFC was determined to get a win in the last game of the year.

And in front of 14,887 fans in the stadium at Hafenstrasse, it looked like they would achieve this for a long time. Halle led 2-0 in Essen and were still 2-1 up until the 80th minute, when Enrique Lofolomo scored an own goal to make it 2-2.

The team from Halle were devastated. Speaking to Magenta Sport, captain Jonas Nietfeld said: “Our triple chance, where we could have put 3-0 on the board, was the crux of the matter. We had to decide the game. Essen then threw everything at us. Nevertheless, two goals away from home has to be enough. It’s unbelievably bitter.”

HFC coach Ristic was even more outspoken than his captain. The former Bundesliga striker for VfB Stuttgart could not believe what he experienced in the Ruhr area over the last few days.

Ristic: “To lose both away games in such a short time is actually inexplicable. We should actually be leading 3-0 or 4-0. Unfortunately, we have to accept it, we have no other choice. It can’t be that we always need three or four goals to win games. We defend very naively in many situations. We need a lot of luck. We have a lot of work ahead of us. You could also see what Essen brought on and what we brought on.”

Halle go into the winter break with 18 points from 19 games and are in serious danger of relegation. But Nietfeld is hopeful: ‘In recent years, we have always improved in the second half of the season. I will remind the boys of that and hope that it will be the same again.’