The ball is finally rolling again in the 2nd Bundesliga. 1. FC Kaiserslautern makes a brilliant return to the German lower house of football. They beat Hannover 96 2-1 thanks to goals from Mike Wunderlich and Kevin Kraus. Havard Nielsen meets for 96. The game to read.
1-0 Wunderlich (11th), 1-1 Nielsen (80th), 2-1 Kraus (90th 2nd)
Kaiserslautern: Luthe – Durm, Tomiak, Kraus, Zuck – Niehues, Ritter – J. Zimmer, Wunderlich, Zolinski (Redondo, 30th) – Boyd (Lobinger, 65th)
Hanover: Zieler – Dehm, Neumann, Börner, Köhn – Ondoua (Kunze, 26.) – Schaub, Besuschkov (Teuchtert, 60.) – Kirk – Weydandt (Nielsen, 60.), Beier (Tresoldi, 87.)
The magical atmosphere on the Betzenberg should inspire the Palatinate in the opening game against Hanover, for which around 40,000 spectators are expected in the Fritz Walter Stadium. “A real cracker is waiting for us,” said FCK trainer Dirk Schuster, “but we want to get the season off to a good start.” The 54-year-old was only signed immediately before the successful relegation against Dynamo Dresden and should now see the club in the league keep.
Follower support could be a key factor in this. “The fans have a fine antenna, which is possible. The euphoria should continue to blaze, we don’t want to slow it down. FCK lives from home strength,” said Hengen on Sky and formulated the goal: “We want to stay in the league longer, but we have to work hard to survive this season in sporting terms. It’s going to be a tough league. It feels like half of the clubs are in promotion mode.”
Kaiserslautern is not one of them. “We should approach the matter humbly,” Hengen had recently given the route in a dpa interview. “The goal can only be relegation.” The players know that too. “For us, it’s about not screwing things up. We don’t want to be like a yo-yo team and then go straight back down,” said forward Terrence Boyd.
In order to be able to survive in the league, almost all top performers were retained and the squad was strengthened with experienced Bundesliga professionals such as goalkeeper Andreas Luthe (Union Berlin) or Erik Durm (Eintracht Frankfurt). Further commitments until the end of the September 1 transfer window are not excluded. Irrespective of this, the self-confidence of the people from the Palatinate is high. “We know what we can do and we’re not going to hide from anyone,” Boyd said, predicting, “We’re going to hold the class. We are all convinced of that.”
