The footballers from VfL Bochum, who are in acute need, were not ashamed that they needed one and a half own goals from FC Augsburg to win 3: 2 (1: 1) on Saturday. These one and a half own goals to make it 2-1 by Augsburg’s Jeffrey Gouweleeuw in the 59th minute and an Anthony Losilla shot deflected by former Bochum player Elvis Rexhbecaj to make it 3-1 in the 62nd minute could mean the Ruhrpott club stay up in the league – and thus another year in the Bundesliga. For a club like VfL, this is an important question of inflow of funds.
“Our only goal was to win this game,” said Bochum’s Christopher Antwi-Adjei on Saturday evening, who made it 1-0 after 90 seconds and also forced Gouweleeuw’s own goal with a sharp cross. “It doesn’t matter how, the main thing is that the balls were in there,” said Antwi-Adjei with relief, “we’ve been training all week to put the ball in the box.” That’s exactly what brought Bochum, who were latently weak in the end, to victory against Augsburg: they forced the goals.
“Bochum had that little bit of luck,” said Augsburg coach Enrico Maaßen at the press conference, and Bochum coach Thomas Letsch replied: “Luck never comes by itself, we worked for it.” Letsch later added in a small circle: “It was all about the points, not how, just about the win.”
However, nothing has been done yet. At best, Bochum saved their chance with this first win after six games without a win. Next Saturday as a guest of Hertha, Bochum can take another big step. After the win against Augsburg, the players unfurled a banner on the lawn in front of the east stand that the fans had brought to them. It read: “On May 20, everyone to Berlin!” When the players showed the banner in the stadium, the almost complete audience sang: “Berlin, Berlin, we’re going to Berlin.”
Even before kick-off there was a southern European atmosphere in the Ruhrstadion. The entire east stand waved blue and white flags and after kick-off it only took 90 seconds to make it 1-0. “The stadium was seething,” said coach Letsch. However, his changeable footballers threatened to give up the game afterwards. Arne Maier equalized in the 29th minute for Augsburg to make it 1-1, and even after the guests scored one and a half own goals between the 59th and 62nd minute, Bochum almost gave up the win.
Kelvin Yeboah only managed to make it 2:3 in the 85th minute. Two minutes earlier Bochum were lucky not to have been awarded a penalty for a tug by Erhan Masovic at Gouweleeuw. This game could have ended in a draw, but that would have been a great misfortune for Bochum. “It was very annoying for the coach Maaßen that his Augsburgers didn’t score the third goal. “If we had taken something here, it would have been for us,” he said about staying up. Augsburg is not finally saved either .