Turned it around. Hello Quarter Finals!

A magical Cup night at anne Castroper! In front of only 750 fans VfL Bochum 1848 came back from being 1-0 down to beat 1. FSV Mainz 05 3-1 thanks to a goal from substitute Eduard Löwen and a brace from Milos Pantovic.

Just three days after our 1-0 defeat away to Mainz 05, VfL Bochum faced the same opposition again, this time at the Vonovia Ruhrstadion. VfL head coach Thomas Reis was determined for his team to take the chance to progress to the next round of the German Cup competition. He made several changes to his starting XI, handing a starting debut to new boy Jürgen Locadia in place of Polter and also introducing Gerrit Holtmann, Danilo Soares, Elvis Rexhbecaj and Patrick Osterhage for Christopher Antwi-Adjei, Konstantinos Stafylidis, Eduard Löwen and Takuma Asano.

VfL Bochum came close after four minutes when Locadia shook off a tackle in midfield, passed wide to Gamboa whose cross found Gerrit Holtmann at the far post but the winger’s shot was scrambled away by the Mainz defence.

Mainz were pushing forward now but their attacks were broken up time and again by the disciplined Bochum defence, with especially Armel Bella-Kotchap making several interceptions.

Onisiwo kept employing his speed and power to create some danger in front of the Bochum goal but Leitsch and Bella-Kotchap kept the dangerous forward in check.

In the 30th minute, Danilo Soares let fly from 25 yards with his shot taking a dangerous deflection off Locadia but goalkeeper Zentner saved the ball. But just three minutes later, the visitors took the lead when Riemann fumbled a shot from 30 yards and Onisiwo poached from the rebound.

Bochum could have equalised in the 44^th minute when Soares stormed down the left wing before putting Holtmann through, but the winger curled his effort wide.

Both teams returned unchanged after the interval, and in the 49^th minute Holtmann hit a great cross to Locadia but the forward’s shot was blocked. Five minutes later it was Locadia again who shimmied past a defender and hit a low shot towards the near corner, but Zentner saved again – that was close! But just one minute passed before Barreiro clearly pulled down Rexhbecaj for a penalty. Pantovic sent Zentner into the left corner before side-footing the ball into the middle of the goal – 1-1!

VfL Bochum clearly in the driving-seat now with Holtmann picking the ball up on the right well inside his own half before dribbling through the Mainz defence. 35 yards out, he released Pantovic who noticed Zentner being off the line and chipped the ball over the goalkeeper into the net – 2-1!

In the 64th minute Locadia had another chance but missed narrowly, and just one minute later, Bell received another yellow card after a foul on Losilla. Polter and Löwen replaced Locadia and Osterhage after 70 minutes and Stach collected another yellow for fouling Soares repeatedly.

In the 80^th minute, our two subs took to the stage with Polter powering past a defender on the left before passing to Löwen who made no mistake and whacked the ball past Zentner.

Asano came on for Holtmann, and Masovic for Rexhbecaj, and in the 88^th minute Asano was clean through, but his shot missed the near post. Thomas Reis sent Masovcic on for Rexhbecaj and VfL Bochum wrapped up the match and progress to the quarter-finals of the cup before we face Cologne on Saturday at 6:30 PM.