Milos Pantovic spread his arms wide and was celebrated by the noisy fans in the Ruhrstadion – the VfL Bochum art shooter was already jumped at by his teammates, pressed and splashed with water. With his goal from his own half, Pantovic (90. + 7) set the final points under this curious 2-0 (0-0) of the promoted team against TSG Hoffenheim.
Manuel Riemann’s first path also led to Pantovic, after all, the Bochum goalkeeper missed with his penalty shot (76th) to calm the mood early on. VfL had to tremble for a long time in front of the onrushing guests, until Pantovic got the ball after a Hoffenheim corner, where TSG goalkeeper Oliver Baumann had also rushed forward, and sank it in the abandoned goal. In the end, the ball bounced over the line.
Soma Novothny (65) had previously taken the lead shortly after being substituted on. “I can’t describe how happy I am,” said the scorer overjoyed: “This will make a dream come true for me.” With the victory in the direct duel, VfL managed to catch up with the middle of the table and, with 13 points, moved up to one point on TSG. For the fourth time, Bochum remained without conceding a goal in their fifth home game.
Bochum’s goalkeeper Riemann takes the penalty – and shoots over the goal
In an overall very mixed game, Hoffenheim took command after a quarter of an hour and narrowly missed the lead twice: First, goal scorer Andrej Kramaric circled the ball from the edge of the penalty area over the crossbar (16th), then a lob from Ihlas Bebou landed the goal net (19.). On the other side, Danny Blum had the biggest chance to date from 16 meters, but narrowly missed (35th).
Over goal: Bochum’s goalkeeper Manuel Riemann misses his penalty.
(Photo: Lukas Schulze / Getty Images)
Shortly after the break, Riemann fished a shot from Florian Grillitsch from over 30 meters with one hand from the right corner (53rd). After more than an hour, Hoffenheim goalkeeper Oliver Baumann was also able to distinguish himself for the first time. He cleared a placed Eduard Löwen free-kick to the side (62nd). Shortly afterwards, Bochum took the lead. Novothny hit completely detached from the head.
Then it got strange: Novothny went to the ground after a duel with Grillitsch in the penalty area, but while the ball was still in play, Grillitsch pushed the goal scorer – and there was a penalty. Cup hero Riemann, who had converted the decisive penalty against FC Augsburg, rushed forward to the cheers of the audience – and shot the ball well over the goal.