After a difficult start in the Oberliga Niederrhein, SSVg Velbert is getting better and better and is enthroned at the top of the table for the first time.
After a bumpy start to the new season in the Oberliga Niederrhein, SSVg Velbert have slowly found their feet. With a 2:0 win against Sportfreunde Baumberg, the team around coach Dimitrios Pappas celebrated its fourth victory in a row. In general, the team is unbeaten after seven matchdays and only stumbled against the promoted teams at the beginning of the season. On Matchday 1, the score was 1-1 against MSV Düsseldorf, and on Matchday 3, 0-0 against SV Sonsbeck.
According to Pappas, however, these games have long since been forgotten and should not be considered too bad: “Of course, the start was a bit difficult with the two draws here at home against two promoted teams. But the promoted teams have done well in the following games and have already won. So in hindsight, it’s not so bad because the promoted teams are also hungry. “
In the meantime, however, things are going well for the promotion favourites and with the win against Baumberg they climbed to the top of the table for the first time with 17 points from the first seven games. For Pappas, however, this is just a side note: “We don’t really look at the table now. We just want to win as many games as possible. “
Offensive with room for improvement – impressive defensive performance
Nevertheless, Velbert are still a long way from having everything running smoothly. The SSVg’s offensive has only scored eight goals so far. By way of comparison, the Velbert team scored 16 times at the same time last season, twice as often. They have not yet scored more than two goals in a match in the league, so the attack around goal scorer Robin Hilger is still a bit lacking.
Even though the coach is also aware of the hobbled offensive, coach Dimitrios Pappas mainly demands something else from his team : “It must not happen to us anymore that we only play back and forth. We have to take control of the game from the start and play the way we are supposed to. The offensive is always in focus. If you want to get promoted, you have to score goals. “
One positive thing to mention: even when the offense falters, Velbert’s defense stands firm. In five of seven matches, the blue and white team remained without conceding a goal. In total, keeper Marvin Niklas Gomoluch only had to make two saves. An impressive statistic and performance that could be a real weapon for Velbert in the promotion race.
The next match for the Velbert team is the 2nd round of the Niederrheinpokal against district league team TSV 05 Ronsdorf (Wednesday, 14 September, 8 p.m.), before they play Union Nettetal in the league (Sunday, 18 September, 3:15 p.m.).