Not an easy away game for the “Zwote” of SV Darmstadt 98. U21 coach Daniel Petrowsky had to rebuild his team a little compared to the previous games. The young Lilies went into the game with a changed basic order. There was also a pitch that was difficult to play on. In the end, the duel was fairly even until half-time. Apart from a hit on the crossbar by the Lilies and two brilliant performances by Darmstadt goalkeeper Til Rohde, little happened and both teams went into the dressing room with a score of 0-0.
Even in the second half there was no clear predominance of either team. Defensively, the U21s were very good and kept coming forward from a stable defence – only the goal was missing. But this came in the 60th minute of the game: a long ball from Max Pfister found striker Georg Makridis, who held on to the ball well and sank it on the turn to give the team a 1-0 lead.
Unfortunately, what worked on one side also worked on the other. This time it was the hosts who came forward with a long ball. Although the Lilies won the ball first, the second ball bounced into the feet of the Alzenauers. They prevailed on the outside and brought the ball sharply into the penalty area, where Lucas Sitter levelled with 15 minutes left.
It wasn’t until the third minute of stoppage time that the decision was made: Darmstadt’s captain Markus Ballmert first won the ball outstandingly in the middle and then sent Mateo Zelic into action with a deep pass, who won the decisive one-on-one duel and completed the attack with the 2-1 winning goal.
Shortly before the final whistle, things got heated again. Firstly there was a brawl, after which Lennox Kern from Bayern Alzenau and Georg Makridis from Lilien picked up red card. Afterwards, the winning goal scorer Mateo Zelic was shown a yellow-red card for time wasting.
