“It’s very tight in the Bundesliga. The win should give us momentum.”
Somewhat lucky and with two Frenchmen who are accurate on target, Borussia Mönchengladbach wins again after a long dry spell. A series also ends for Wolfsburg. The Gladbachers are stalking the European Cup places.
NAfter five games in a row without a win, Borussia Mönchengladbach has stopped the negative run in the Bundesliga. The team coached by Daniel Farke defeated VfL Wolfsburg 2-0 (1-0) on Sunday, but is still in tenth place with 35 points – far away from the international starting places, which are now undefeated for the previous five games in Wolfsburg (39 points) are a little further away. In front of 51,127 spectators in Borussia Park, Nathan Ngoumou (34th minute) and Marcus Thuram (63rd) scored the goals for the hosts. For the first time since the 3-2 win against FC Bayern Munich, the team was able to celebrate a threesome.
“That’s very good. It was a difficult home game, which we took to our side. We take a 1-0 lead, after that the game tipped over. In the end we deserved to win,” said Florian Neuhaus, who praised the support of the Gladbach fans, on “Dazn”. “It’s very tight in the Bundesliga. The win should give us momentum. We have gained self-confidence and are going to Frankfurt with confidence.”
The guests, who couldn’t win against Gladbach in the league for three years, started the game well and created their first chances early on. Coach Niko Kovac had to rebuild his entire right side because of the suspensions of Ridle Baku and Patrick Wimmer and brought in Kilian Fischer on the right back and Felix Nmecha on the offensive right side. Borussia was lucky after goalkeeper Jonas Omlin was able to parry a header from Omar Marmousch in the fifth minute and the Wolfsburg goal by Mattias Svanberg (10th) was disallowed for offside. Christoph Kramer had previously initiated the Lower Saxony counterattack with a bad pass.
Thuram praises Plea
In addition to the suspended Manu Koné, for whom Florian Neuhaus moved into defensive midfield, Gladbach initially also had to do without Jonas Hofmann. Gladbach’s strongest offensive player had been absent all week for personal reasons and only came on in the closing stages. His substitute Nathan Ngoumou initially found it difficult to find his way on the right-hand side because the game of the Lower Rhine team was characterized by many mistakes and little creativity.
But after a weak pass from VfL keeper Koen Casteels, Marcus Thuram was there. He served Ngoumou – and he hit the far corner with his left to make it surprisingly 1-0. Up to this point, the guests were clearly the better team. It was the first Bundesliga goal for the 23-year-old Frenchman.
Even with the opening goal in the back, Gladbach’s game didn’t get much better, but gained security. Wolfsburg still had good chances. The strong Svanberg failed to Omlin (47th), who again showed an excellent performance in the Borussia goal. The decision in favor of Gladbach came after just over an hour: Plea’s header after a cross from Ngoumou was used by Thuram, who scored the 2-0 and his 13th goal of the season from close range. Marcus Thuram said after the game on “Dazn”: “Our fans have carried us through difficult times. When Plea is on the field it becomes much easier for me to score. Thank you for the great template.”