The Black & Yellow U23s had their game away to VfL Osnabrück under control for 90 minutes and took the lead through one of their many chances, but ultimately suffered a 2-1 defeat. Osnabrück turned the match around in a hectic final phase and sealed their promotion to the 2. Bundesliga.
The scenario: VfL Osnabrück went into the game above but level on points with SV Wehen Wiesbaden. Only one goal separated the two teams, meaning that VfL had to win clearly in order to be promoted and prevent Wehen from going up at their expense. The BVB U23s were already assured of their survival before kick-off.
Personnel matters: Aside from the long-term injury absentees Abdoulaye Kamara and Ole Pohlmann, coach Jan Zimmermann was only without Tom Rothe, who was on first-team duty.
The match & analysis: BVB seized the initiative early on and repeatedly launched dangerous counters. Michael Eberwein could have opened the lead in the eighth minute but fired his shot over the home team’s goal. After the quarter-hour mark had passed, VfL grew more courageous and applied more pressure but could not carve out any real chances in the first half. BVB, meanwhile, repeatedly looked dangerous. Ted Tattermusch, Niklas Dams and Justin Njinmah all failed to put the ball in the opposition net, however. The best opportunity fell to Njinmah, whose header was kept out by the crossbar. BVB continued to defend in a focused manner and only allowed the Lily Whites to breach their defences on rare occasions.
There was initially no change to the balance of play in the second half either. And Njinmah finally got his reward when he made it 1-0 following a great counter by Franz Pfanne. It was his 13th goal of the season, which equalled Tammo Harder’s record from the 2013/14 campaign for the most goals for BVB in the 3. Liga.
The hosts looked considerably livelier from the 60th minute and launched several attacks, but initially they could not create major chances. Osnabrück increasingly applied pressure in the closing stages and it was Ba-Muaka Simakala who restored parity for the Lily Whites at 1-1 in the 94th minute. Only two minutes later, Osnabrück sealed the final promotion berth: Jannes Wulff took advantage of a mix-up in the BVB penalty area and scored the surprise winner.
U23s: Lotka – Dams, Collins, Bueno, Özkan, Pfanne, Eberwein, Michel, Papadopoulos, Tattermusch, Njinmah
Goals: 0-1 Njinmah (48), 1-1 Simakala (90+4), 2-1 Wullf (90+6)