Rot-Weiss Essen welcomes VfL Osnabrück on Wednesday evening (September 17, 7 p.m.). Uwe Koschinat thinks very highly of his former club. Things will heat up at the Hafenstraße stadium on Wednesday evening. 17,800 of the 19,300 available tickets have already been sold (as of Tuesday, September 16, 2 p.m.). Over 2,000 visiting fans are expected from Lower Saxony.

VfL Osnabrück, the former club of RWE coach Uwe Koschinat, is level on points with RWE after five games, with two wins, two draws, and one defeat. As they say, it’s a game that will set the tone. Koschinat knows that too.

Before the RWE vs. VfL match, he spoke about…

… the personnel situation: “We are in a good position. Except for Nicolai Schulte-Kellinghaus, all our players are available. Torben Müsel has been training without any problems.”

… VfL Osnabrück: “We’re facing a team that has the same number of points as us. The team that wins will move up to the top. A defeat would leave you stuck in mid-table and under greater pressure at the end of the English week. We want to avoid that.”

… the strengths and weaknesses of VfL: “We’re finding it easy to score goals at the moment, but difficult to prevent them. Osnabrück have benefited from an impeccable defensive performance, conceding only three goals. They have a good overall team spirit and unity. They attack in different areas and are dangerous on the counterattack.”

… the opponent’s squad: “Joe Enochs has made some good transfers. Goalkeeper Lukas Jonsson exudes calmness. Defensive leader Jannik Müller is very strong, Bjarke Jacobsen is strong in the center of midfield and dangerous from set pieces. With Robin Meißner and Lars Kehl, whom we have to take out of the game, they also have good offensive weapons. The team seems very stable.“

… the lineup: ”The starting situation must not be focused exclusively on offense. I’m not a fan of offensive fireworks, but rather prefer defensive stability. We have to get back to that and not get too wild. We have a lot of personnel options. But it would be a mistake to betray our approach. It’s also clear that we made few changes after successes in the second half of last season and thus achieved our victories with an unchanged lineup.”