KFC Uerdingen impressively beat promotion rivals VfB 03 Hilden 4:0 (2:0) to climb up the table. Interim coach Levan Kenia praised the team’s discipline.

KFC Uerdingen have put themselves ahead in the promotion race in the Oberliga Niederrhein and set an exclamation mark with a 4:0 (2:0) victory over VfB 03 Hilden to kick off matchday 24. 2010 spectators watched the game in the Grotenburg Stadium. As a result, the Krefeld side remain without a point in their third league match under interim coaching duo Levan Kenia and Johannes Dahms.

Kenia, who was still on the pitch himself in the role of assistant coach until the end, praised his team’s impressive performance: “I’m delighted. We played a very good game. We did what we set out to do. We’ve had an intensive week of training, which we put to good use. You could see that in the game. We were able to bring a good intensity to the pitch and score four goals.”

The traditional club got off to a rocket start and built up a lot of pressure right from the start. The blue and red fans were able to celebrate for the first time in the 5th minute of the match when Alexander Lipinski dusted off a shot from distance by Maik Odenthal and a goalkeeping error to give the team a 1:0 lead.

The hosts then remained the superior team and pinned their opponents back into their own half in the first third of the match. Following a corner kick, Odenthal then increased the lead to 2:0 with a dream goal: his powerful shot from an unusual position on the touchline and around 25 meters away from goal sank into the crease (33′).

The boys are having a lot of fun at the moment and showing their enjoyment of the game. There’s no other way to achieve a result like this.

Levan Kenya

After the break, Uerdingen adopted a different tactic and took a wait-and-see approach. “We don’t have to play 90 minutes of pressing in our own stadium. In the second half, we wanted to tempt our opponents a bit and make pinpricks on the counter-attack. It was great that our plan worked and that the last two goals were scored in exactly the same way,” said coach Kenia.

After the visitors from Hilden searched in vain for a long time for the final goal and did not have the necessary luck on their side, the home side proved to be efficient and sealed the deal in the final phase with goals from Pascale Talarski (84′) to make it 3:0 and Takumi Yanagisawa (90.+1) to make it 4:0.

“We had some good moves, built up patiently from the back and played aggressively. What was missing a little in the last few games were the goals. We’ve now counteracted that with the 4:0,” analyzed coach Kenya. In contrast to the last few games, his team played with more freedom and were able to exploit their potential and bring their qualities to the pitch. For the 33-year-old Georgian, there is a simple explanation for this, which underlines the effect of the change of coach: “The boys are having a lot of fun at the moment and are enjoying the game. There’s no other way to achieve a result like this.”

With Saturday evening’s success, KFC Uerdingen have climbed to third place in the table and have distanced themselves somewhat from rivals VfB 03 Hilden (fifth in the table). Next week, the team of the moment will continue their campaign at SC Union Nettetal (March 28, 7:30 p.m.). Hilden will host Sportfreunde Hamborn 07 at the same time