VfL Bochum won the groundbreaking basement duel against FC Augsburg and thus collected three very important points for the mission to stay in the league. After the 3: 2 (1: 1) and the simultaneous victory of Bayern Munich against Schalke 04, the team of coach Thomas Letsch jumped to 15th place at least overnight, but in any case VfL left the direct relegation places.
On Sunday, VfB Stuttgart could push Bochum back to the relegation zone.
Christopher Antwi-Adjei after just 91 seconds, an own goal by Jeffrey Gouweleeuw (59th) and captain Anthony Losilla (62nd) scored the goals for Bochum in front of 24,453 fans, who were able to celebrate the longed-for liberation after six games in a row without a win. Arne Maier (29th) scored for the interim 1-1 equalizer for FCA, who missed another big step towards staying in the class. Substitute Kelvin Yeboah (85th) made the final score.
The first attack shook the Ruhrstadion: Antwi-Adjei got through on the left, let an opponent run into space in the penalty area and slammed the ball into the corner with full conviction.
As a result, an open exchange of blows developed with many tough duels. Konstantinos Stafylidis saw the first yellow card after just four minutes, but had to take a few shots himself and a little later felt hurt and in tears from the field (36th).
The two teams with the worst passing rates in the league did a lot on the counterattack. Takuma Asano put on a sprint across the entire field, lacking the power to finish (8th). On the other side, Maier had too much space, his first shot just missed the goal of the hosts (14th).
After the wild initial phase with many goal area scenes, the game calmed down a bit, then Maier caused the first mood dampener. After a nice pass from Dion Drena Beljo, the midfielder pushed in to equalize. But VfL stayed tuned – and came out of the break better.
Felix Uduokhai first forced Tomas Koubek to make a brilliant move (51′), but then the FCA goalkeeper had no chance when his second central defender and captain Gouweleeuw took a deflected shot. Losilla finally put VfL on the road to victory with his deflected shot from around 25 meters.
VfL Bochum – FC Augsburg: The voices of the game
Thomas Letsch (coach VfL Bochum): “Everyone in the stadium noticed from the start that the team wanted to. The bottom line was that we were the more active team. We finally accepted the duels again, then we won the balls that we need. The team showed morale, the stadium and all of Bochum was bubbling. Today we’re happy, then we’ll continue and next week we’ll go to Berlin.”
Enrico Maassen (FC Augsburg coach): “We started very badly but then reacted well. We conceded three unfortunate goals because the opponents had that little bit of luck. But they wanted it more in the end. If we took something from here, that would have been it . We’re upset, but we have to get up now and then we still have two real boards.”
