FC Augsburg

Maaßen: “We played a great game up until the red card” Post-match reaction following 3-3 draw...

“We’ve got a lot of young players with potential in our squad and we wanted to get an experienced man in our midfield, especially now Niklas Dorsch is ruled out injured for a long time. Julian will help our team both on and off the pitch with his sporting quality, his mentality, his character and his experience,” said Stefan Reuter, FCA sporting director.

… the transfer coming about at short notice: “The first contact came last week and we met on Wednesday. We got along straight away and came to an agreement relatively quickly.”

“Mainz are very compact, defend well and can switch the play effectively. We will need our best performance to get anything from there,” said the 38-year-old ahead of the clash with the Zero-Fivers, who have bagged four points from their opening two fixtures. Nevertheless, Maaßen and his team are aiming for their first home win in what will be their third game of the season: “We have to play with our chests puffed out and believe that we can win back-to-back games.”

After heavy rain in Augsburg for most of the day, the game kicked off at short notice on the artificial pitch at the Paul Renz Academy. The weather conditions – as it only drizzled at the beginning of the game – did no damage to the teams’ performance.  Over two 17 minute halves the sides were evenly matched, with the visitors from Salt Lake City controlling the first half. In the second period, Felix Neumeyer’s side assumed charge of proceedings, and Mateo Mrden had the best chance of the match when he headed the ball just wide, meaning the game finished in a goalless draw.

The second half of the season kicks off only three days later as FCA travel to SC Freiburg (Saturday, 28th January 2023, 15:30 CET). On matchday 19, Enrico Maaßen’s side will enjoy a floodlit game when Champions League participants Bayer Leverkusen come to the WWK Arena (Friday, 3rd February 2023, 20:30 CET).
 

“We put in an excellent performance against Leipzig, at least when we had the same number of players on the pitch. You could really see what this team are capable of even though we were missing some key names,” said Enrico Maaßen, who was reflecting on last weekend’s 3-3 draw with RB Leipzig. “If we bring the energy and conviction of recent weeks onto the pitch on Saturday then we have a real chance of winning the game,” continued the boss.

FCA head coach Enrico Maaßen had to go without left-back Iago after he received a red card in the 3-3 draw against RB Leipzig. In his place, Mads Pedersen who got back to full fitness just in time, started at left-back. On the right hand side of defence, Fredrik Jensen, having himself recently recovered from injury, was a very offensive minded player. Felix Uduokhai was back in the squad for the first time after suffering a syndesmosis ligament tear. 

FCA had scored eight goals in their last three competitive matches – and Maaßen’s troops started the game against Stuttgart with similar levels of vigour. After Ruben Vargas missed the first chance of the game (3’), it was only 60 seconds later when FCA actually took the lead. After Jensen played the ball out wide to Florian Niederlechner, the striker skipped past the challenge of Dan-Axel Zagadou before lobbing past Stuttgart shot-stopper Florian Müller into the corner. That was Niederlechner’s second goal of the season with his first coming in the away game at Köln (2-3). 

Again and again, the Fuggerstädter were embroiled in challenges with Stuttgart, but the home side showed great commitment in the period that followed. After precisely 15 minutes, Stuttgart with interim head coach Michael Wimmer in charge, who had worked as an assistant coach with FCA during the 2018/19 season, had grabbed the equaliser. Borna Sosa sent an inviting cross into the box where Serhou Guirassy buried his header into the goal from close range at the first time of asking. 

Both sides continued to look dangerous going forward. Niederlechner sent a shot flying narrowly past the right hand side of the goal (17’) and Mergim Berisha forced Müller into a good diving save (20’). After 25 minutes, Maaßen was forced to make his first change as Lukas Petkov replaced Ruben Vargas, who appeared to have hurt his ankle. The former missed from a long ball from Jeffery Gouweleeuw shortly after coming on, while Luca Pfeiffer (33’) and Chris Führich (37’) missed the target from good positions for VfB. On the stroke of half time, Mads Pedersen made a fantastic save from Silas only a few metres in front of goal. 

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