A Point Won Against Elversberg

In the first ten minutes of the top match, the visitors from Elversberg had the better of the play, but failed to create any dangerous scoring opportunities.

After 13 minutes, Darmstadt finally threatened the Elversberg goal: a ball slipped through to Yosuke Furukawa, but his shot was blocked for a corner. It was precisely this corner that led to the opening goal for the home side. The ball was initially saved by Kristof in the Elversberg goal, but Hiroki Akiyama fired a shot from outside the box, and Patric Pfeiffer in the middle of the box steered the ball into the net. Just a minute later, Fraser Hornby capitalised on a misplaced pass from the Elversberg defence and confidently slotted home from 18 meters to make it 2-0 for Darmstadt after a quarter of an hour.

After that, Elversberg applied pressure and nearly pulled a goal back in the 24th minute, but Mokwa headed over the bar from close range. Two minutes later, Elversberg got on the scoreboard: In the scramble in the penalty area, the ball bounced to Zimmerschied, who made it 2-1.

After good work from Furukawa, Marco Richter curled the ball towards the far post, but Hornby just missed it on 32 minutes. Two minutes later, the visitors equalised: Rohr had some space and scored from distance to make it 2-2.

The game took another turn in the 44th minute, referee Hempel ruled a foul after a slight nudge from Pfeiffer – and because the SVD defender was the last man, the referee also sent him off. As if the sending-off wasn’t enough, Petkov’s subsequent free kick was deflected into the net to make it 3-2 at halftime to the visitors in added time.

Despite being down to ten men, the 98ers didn’t give up and pressed for the equaliser from the restart. Just three minutes had been played when Hornby got a shot off after a corner, but put the ball over the bar. Three minutes later, the Scot made amends: After a nice combination with Isac Lidberg, he slotted the ball home to equalise.

Despite being down to ten men, the home side from southern Hesse weren’t content with a draw and pushed for another goal to take the lead. This repeatedly created space for the visitors, who, however, rarely managed to convert it into scoring opportunities.

Five minutes before the end of the match, referee Hempel was once again in the spotlight: Pinckert fouled Lidberg just outside the penalty area – a similar situation to the first half, but this time the official only issued a yellow card. The ensuing free kick was blasted wide by Marco Richter. In the final minutes, the hosts pressed hard for the winning goal: Akiyama tried his luck from distance, but Kristof managed to divert the ball around the post despite misjudging the effort with 2 minutes of normal time remaining. In stoppage time, the visitors almost snatched a late winner, but first Marcel Schuhen made a superb save against Schnellbacher, and then Matej Maglica cleared the ball off the line, leaving the match ultimately without a winner.