On Tuesday evening (7 p.m.) in the round of 16 of the Niederrheinpokal,

Rot-Weiss Essen will travel to Oberliga club SV Straelen – a duel that RWE knows from past years.

On Tuesday evening, Rot-Weiss Essen will go on a journey back in time. The third division club is a guest at SV Straelen, now in the Oberliga, in the Römerstraße Stadium, which the Esseners know well from their days in the Regionalliga West.

“We’ll quickly be back to reality there. It’s all about focus, concentration and simply getting the job done,” emphasized coach Christoph Dabrowski at the press conference following the derby victory over MSV Duisburg (2:1). The coach himself did not experience the duel, but he knows that it can be unpleasant for RWE from time to time.

Successful in Straelen, two defeats in Essen recently

Although Essen have won all three of their recent meetings at the Römerstraße (1-0, 2-0, 1-0), they have stumbled against Straelen at Hafenstraße in the last two games.

The two teams met in Essen in the 2019/20 Niederrhein Cup semi-final. Back then, RWE looked like certain winners for a long time after Simon Engelmann scored, but Ferry de Regt equalized in the fourth minute of stoppage time. In extra time, Straelen even took the lead through Cagatay Kader, which Oguzhan Kefkir was able to equalize, but Straelen then had the better nerves from eleven meters (4-2 on penalties).

Just a few months later, on the second matchday of the following 2021/22 season, SVS were guests in Essen again and this time won the game comfortably. A hat-trick from top scorer Kader and a goal from Timo Mehlich handed RWE a heavy 1-4 defeat.

Schommers “knows the score”

But it’s not just his personal history with Straelen that has RWE on its guard. “I think my colleague (MSV coach Boris Schommers, editor’s note) can tell us a thing or two about what’s possible in the Niederrheinpokal. We can too, as we saw last season,” Dabrowski said, looking back on Duisburg’s 1-0 defeat in extra time against Uerdingen, as well as their own games against ETB SW Essen (4-2 on penalties) and 1. FC Bocholt (5-4 on penalties) in the previous season, in which Essen only managed to win on penalties.

Accordingly, the coach and his staff want to “prepare the team for this – and then it’s just about getting through to the next round.”