The ball was rolling! What would be a boring statement at any other football game was very newsworthy in Saarbrücken because the ball didn’t roll at the beginning of February. Back then, during the first attempt at a DFB Cup quarter-final between 1. FC Saarbrücken and Borussia Mönchengladbach, the pitch was flooded. A little more than a month and a new turf later, this time the continuous rain was not enough to turn the meadow in Saarbrücken-Malstatt into a moor again before the start.
The winning goal looked almost exactly like the winning goal against FC Bayern
But it was still the perfect outsider biotope: wet, disgusting, uncomfortable – and the lawn was again in questionable condition due to the plants not having enough time to grow roots. Every time a player pushed the studs into the ground too forcefully, the green would ripple and fold like a living room carpet.
And what must say? Saarbrücken has done it again. And the winning goal looked almost exactly like the winning goal against FC Bayern. Counterattack in stoppage time, Marcel Gaus was also involved again, but this time Kai Brünker scored after a cross pass and it was fitting that evening that he scored the goal to make it 2-1 from a puddle. 1. FC Saarbrücken is – like in 2020 – in the cup semi-finals and will face their great rivals of the past – 1. FC Kaiserslautern – on April 2nd.
“The 1. FC Saarbrücken – cup team,” said Brünker on the ZDF microphone. “F*** that was a fight, sorry for the language, but we were just running after the ball,” he swore very happily. “The fact that the goal came after the 90th minute today is simply crazy. Now we can say: We want to go to Berlin.”
Kai Brünker scores the winning goal from the puddle.
(Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)
The cup sensation from the service started the game surprisingly courageously and offensively. After just four minutes, Kasim Rabihic shot the ball past the far post, and two minutes later the ball flipped to Robin Becker, whose shot from behind was deflected. And when people were still wondering whether Saarbrücken’s coach Rüdiger Ziehl had succeeded in a surprise tactic, the third division team was behind. After a corner from Saarland, Gladbach countered. Marcel Gaus misjudged a long pass from Florian Neuhaus and the ball landed at Robin Hack via the quick Franck Honorat – 1-0. A goal that the FCS should have scored.
But Saarbrücken was already behind against Bayern in the second round of the cup and came back – this time it only took two minutes. Amine Naifi took advantage of a brief moment of airiness in the Borussia defense to shoot a precise and powerful shot to equalize. Gladbach’s field advantage – gone.
A short phase of anarchic shooting followed, the ball flew back and forth, then back and forth again, but with better opportunities for Borussia. Rocco Reitz and Honorat missed clear opportunities to quickly take the lead again; Honorat’s shot, for example, was fended off by Lukas Boeder with his backside on the line. Perhaps because Saarbrücken realized that this Wild West football was not (yet) working to their advantage, they remembered their old turtle tactics and armored themselves after a good 20 minutes. Only now was the game that was expected from the beginning. Gladbach tried to overcome the Saarbrücken chains with series of passes.
In the second half, Saarbrücken hardly got out of their own half – actually only once
That worked reasonably well, Borussia had obviously watched the FCS’s games against FC Bayern (1:2) and Frankfurt (0:2) and identified “toughness in duels” as a basic virtue for success. Reitz, Neuhaus and Hack showed good physical tension in direct duels and repeatedly found Honorat, who also had speed advantages over Gaus on the spongy soft surface – but the Borussia team no longer had any clear chances. Striker Jordan often stood alone against three third division defenders, led by veteran Manuel Zeitz.
So it went into the break with the score 1-1, in between everyone involved – from Saarbrücken’s goalkeeper Tim Schreiber to coach Ziehl – patched up the grass and placed large pieces of green that had come out back in the designated spot, it was a constant botanical puzzle.
The second half began like the first – Saarbrücken took advantage of the breather of the quarter-hour break and used the energy they gained into attacks. However, there were no more than three throw-ins from Gaus. Gladbach took control again – but didn’t have much of a chance either, apart from an arc lamp from Hack that landed on the goal net.
Gladbach’s coach Gerardo Seoane reacted, brought on Manu Koné and Nathan Ngoumou after 70 minutes and that had the effect that the FCS could no longer get out of their own defense. The Saarbrücken audience began to celebrate winning duels and goals and, by the way, it kept raining. The water collected and, of all things, during Saarbrücken’s first counterattack in half an hour, the ball remained in a puddle.
And just when it looked as if the ground in Ludwigspark was turning against the home team, that it might be too deep for their own legs and that the third division team would have difficulty surviving extra time – Saarbrücken countered to win.