WSV travels to leaders Lotte and beats them up! Shows what Wuppertal is capable up when they just focus.
Lotte is the likely promotion favorite, and certainly expected a win. (Not that anyone cares, since they have zero fans and nobody has ever heard of them). And they grabbed the lead and seemed to be on their way. But WSV wasn’t phased and soon the outstanding Maciej Zieba equalized, after the combo with Ben Baltes and Tom Moosmayer. WSV then stunned their hosts by taking the lead when Marcel Landers floated in a freekick – meant as a cross – that ended up in the net. In the 2nd half, it was the Zieba show, as first his inside pass could only be knocked in for an own goal, and then he put home another cross from Mossmayer. 1-4 and the rout was on…not. This is WSV, and they can never make things easy. Soon after Felix Haas got his ass red carded, giving Lotte some hope. The leaders threw everything into attack and came storming back. WSV defended desperately for a while, and then in injury time, a couterattack by Marco Quotschalla finished the match.
Despite scoring 5 times, it’s a bit surprising that Christian Knappmann didn’t notch one. Perhaps he shot his wad midweek at Kaiserslautern…
A nice win for WSV, but mostly as a reminder of what could have been. If they hadn’t been dicking around mid season (and early season and for the most part late season too…hey, all season), this could have been a promotion decider – with Wuppertal at least returning to the 3.Liga. As it is, Lotte could probably care less, as their promotion rivals Dortmund II and Gladbach II also lost.
WSV has a makeup home match Tuesday against Bayer Alka-Seltzer Light (Luserkusen II), who basically suck in 17th place. So if the pattern continues, WSV will probably stink and lose disgracefully, and the fans will only console themselves with “Runge raus!!” chants.
Sportfreunde Lotte - Wuppertaler SV 3:5 (1:2) Attendance: 920 (connectM-Arena) 1:0 Wingerter (7.) 1:1 Zieba (21.) 1:2 Landers (25.) 1:3 M. Lorenz (49., own goal) 1:4 Zieba (53.) 2:4 Kotuljac (74.) 3:4 Engelmann (76., penalty rebound) 3:5 Quotschalla (90. + 3) LOTTE: Buchholz - Grieneisen, Dal. Gataric, Czyszczon, Zinke - Wingerter, Zech - Loose , M. Lorenz - Engelmann, Kotuljac Subs: Schlösser (46., Dal. Gataric) Assauer (67., Zech) Maddente (71., Wingerter) Trainer: Walpurgis WUPPERTAL: Semmler - El Hammouchi, Flottmann, F. Haas, Herzenbruch - Landers, Fleßers, Moosmayer, Baltes - Zieba - Knappmann Subs: Schlieter (58., Baltes) Quotschalla (74., Landers) Meier (86., Knappmann) Trainer: Bruns