After the 2-2 draw between MSV Duisburg and Rot-Weiss Essen, MSV coach Torsten Ziegner raved about Essen’s goal scorer Simon Engelmann.

For 65 minutes on Friday evening, MSV Duisburg looked like the sure winner. The Zebras were 2-0 up in the third division derby against Rot-Weiss Essen, and the visitors hardly had anything compelling on the offensive. Until the 67th minute – when Simon Engelmann suddenly turned the game in the other direction.

The 33-year-old had only been on the pitch for eight minutes; Essen coach Christoph Dabrowski had substituted Engelmann for Niklas Tarnat. An unusual situation for the top scorer of the past four Regionalliga West seasons, who is currently only second choice in attack behind Ron Berlinski in the Essen game. This scene showed that the two can also work together: After a mistake by Duisburg’s Joshua Bitter, Berlinski showed vision in the Duisburg penalty area and played the ball across to Engelmann, who put the ball unerringly into the goal next to the post – and thus breathed new life into his team. Lawrence Ennali equalised just four minutes later, and in the end RWE could even have won the match.

Duisburg coach Torsten Ziegner was annoyed about the avoidable goal. “We should have kicked the ball out for a corner or a throw-in, then nothing would have happened.” However, the 44-year-old was also particularly impressed by how coolly Engelmann scored the first third league goal of his career. “The scene shows that he is a striker. He just shoots the ball in, that’s how a striker has to function,” said Ziegner.

An indication of what Ziegner is possibly still missing in the Duisburg team at the moment? It’s no secret that the Zebras need reinforcements, especially on the offensive. Aziz Bouhaddouz has a lot of quality, but he is 35 years old – and once again he was only able to play as a substitute. Phillip König, who came from Holstein Kiel II in the summer, was also absent against Essen after his long-term Corona infection. No wonder that a new striker is expected to arrive in the coming week – probably called Benjamin Girth. He is such a penalty area striker, most recently he played for Eintracht Braunschweig.