Rot-Weiss Essen has landed hard on the ground of third division reality. Comment.

After promotion, everyone in Essen was eagerly awaiting RWE’s opener. After the 1:5 loss to SV Elversberg at the start of the Third League, the first thing that came over them was disillusionment. Rot-Weiss Essen made an exclamation mark, but in the wrong direction.

Felix Bastians addressed it after the game: “If we play like this, we won’t score in the league.” One can only say, welcome to the 3rd league. Mistakes are punished here, Essen demonstrated that impressively.

And there were quite a few mistakes that could not have been expected after the outstanding regional league season. Daniel Heber and Felix Herzenbruch, two faces of promotion, were completely out of their depth, were in the draw for almost all the goals conceded. Sandro Plechaty was a shadow of his former self.

RWE keep failing from the penalty spot

Cedric Harenbrock joined the long list of RWE players who have missed crucial penalties in recent years. How he could also miss the follow-up shot to a possible 1:1 remains a mystery.

At the end of the day, the realisation remains that there can be days like this, and RWE has not experienced this for the first time after promotion. Dabrowski now has two weeks to prepare the players for the derby with MSV Duisburg.

So that they can then report on positive things. Because there were positive things. Ron Berlinski’s debut whetted the appetite for more, and RWE can only hope that he did not suffer a serious injury. And the fans reacted well to the dismantling. There were no whistles, no expressions of displeasure. You can see that the team has credit, and that should give them confidence.