50’: GOAL! 1-0 to Werder. Hesl can’t quite believe it, though neither can Milos Veljkovic. His cross from deep flies through the air, all the way over the Würzburg goalkeeper and into the top corner. It’s lucky, but incredibly important!
58’: Sané climbs highest to meet Florian Kainz’s corner kick, only to head narrowly wide of the upright.
74’: GOAL! 2-0 to Werder. The Green-Whites have their all-important cushion, as Kainz’s pinpoint cross is volleyed home by Max Kruse. Easy as you like.
77’: GOAL! 3-0 to Werder. That’ll do it. Hesl’s risky pass out is too hot for Nikolaou and Maximilian Eggestein nicks the ball off him, before rounding the keeper and slotting into the empty net.
Summary: Kickers were set up from the start to be as defensively solid as possible. In the opposition half the Green-Whites were met by a densely packed and deep sitting Kickers side, that was happy to wait and hope for Werder to become impatient before hitting them on the counter attack. However, Werder gave them no such opportunity. Instead, SVW calmly dominated possession and controlled the match. Werder looked somewhat short of ideas at times though, with their only real threat to Kickers coming when the dangerous looking Augustinsson made progress down the left wing. Apart from that, the Green-Whites failed to make any real inroads into dangerous areas in the first half. The hosts, who seemed to lack any attacking threat, almost turned the one-sided affair on its head shortly before half time, when Taffertshofer hit the post from close range. This made it all the more important for Werder to really up their game after the restart. They were helped as Veljkovic’s unexpected looping effort went in just at the right time to knock the wind out of Kickers’ sails. Werder then made the difference in class between them and the courageous Würzburger Kickers count, as they ended up winning the match 3-0.
