Match Report: Wolfsburg (H)

Pre-match

It's been a while since I wrote a match report in these parts, but today felt notable enough for one.

Union have had a nightmarish second half of the season, with last week's humbling at bottom feeders Heidenheim enough to see Steffen Baumgart relieved of his duties.

And so a little piece of history is made, as Marie-Louise Eta steps in to manage the men's team until the end of the season.

As the parent of a very young daughter, I mainly want to write this so that she can read it in 15 years and, hopefully, laugh incredulously at how hyped up this whole thing has been.

It'd be lovely if she lived in a world where top level football management was not exclusively a boys' club.

By dint of being (Shock! Horror!) a woman, Eta has become the first female manager of a men's team in Europe's top leagues.

The coverage thereof has been breathless in the extreme, making headlines well outside of Germany, and in some cases attracting the ire of various mouth breathers in the sweaty, fetid corners of the internet.

If there is an internet in 2041 and anyone around to read it, I hope that this makes as little sense to you as when today's teenagers are shown a VHS tape.

It was the past. We did things differently.

The club, for their part, have seemed suitably and admirably bemused by the whole kerfuffle. The rationale is simple.

Eta is a proven leader at the club. She's done a great job with the under-19s. She's co-managed the men's team before. She knows the club, knows the players, and is simply the best person for the job.

Everything else is irrelevant.

And so to the game, where our new boss was relentlessly mobbed by cameras wherever she walked in the pre-match preparations.

An absolutely massive 'Fußballgöttin' greeted our new trainer's announcement in the line ups, the Waldseite then getting the songs going lomg before kick off.

Burke and Ansah started alongside Ilic up front, in an otherwise familiar lineup.

Wolfsburg are knocking on the door of relegation, and had emptied the factory to achieve a rare sellout of the Gästeblock.

I'm one of the pessimists who still firmly believe Union could be sucked into the relegation battle, so it was important that we got some kind of result today. Would a new manager with a week to prepare be enough to give the team a lift?

Spoiler alert: sort of, but also no.

First Half

An absolutely raucous atmosphere seethed in the spring sunshine, imploring the team to stand and fight.

The opening exchanges were even, Wolfsburg good on the ball via the ageless Christian Eriksen and the holy shit he's a bit good Patrick Wimmer.

Union had an early chance from a corner after Burke had blasted down the right. Doekhi rising for a trademark header that sadly lacked enough puff to beat the keeper.

One thing it's tough to account for is wonder goals, and to my mind we concede more than our share of them. After about 10 minutes, Wimmer managed to one-two his way past Rothe and Querfeld and canter towards the box, Union players in hot pursuit.

Khedira attempted a rugby tackle but Winner, about 25 yards out, took the contact and, off balance, pinged it with the outside of his foot and into this too corner.

A ridiculous goal, perhaps a little naively defended, but take nothing away from it.

Union were shell shocked but grew into the game, Wolfsburg happy to sit back.

The plan was as usual, bombard the box with crosses and balls in, try to create chaos. We were a little more patient and measured on the build up, actively trying to stretch the game to the flanks for Trimmel to put Burke in behind or curl a cross from deep.

The aerial plan nearly worked, a deep ball headed back across by Querfeld to find the onrushing Ansah. His sidefoot half volley looked sure to go in, but Grabara made a full stretch save to keep it out.

We kept causing problems, none of it particularly pretty but certainly carrying a threat.

Rothe fired a volley just over, Ilic flashed one wide.

At the other end, a soft Eriksen volley was as close as they came to adding to the lead, a few scrappy corners aside.

But we got to half time frustrated, unable to make the breakthrough.

Second Half

We all hoped for our dominance to tell in the second half, but it had barely kicked off before we had conceded again.

The ball went into the corridor of uncertainty (the large patch of pitch I can't see), and seemed to be in our possession, but what emerged from the crowd of heads was a Wolfsburg player shimmying towards goal.

He cut inside and curled a low effort that looked in from the moment it left his boot, Freddie unable to stretch to get it.

Another cracking finish in fairness. But oh my were we in trouble.

To Union's credit, we kept battling and plugging away. Ansah had dropped a bit more central and was creating problems. Ilic spent most of the afternoon being fooled as usual.

Burke ran really fast. Lots of hustle, little threat.

It did get more dangerous, Burke starting to get the better of the full back. A good cross, one of few to be honest, found Ilic, but his header somehow stayed out via a combination of goalie and post.

So many times we had the ball in the box just needing a decisive touch, but luck was not in our favour, despite clearly being the better side.

We finally got a breakthrough after some 70 minutes, Burke timing his run perfectly to break the lines, and a beautiful through ball putting him clean through to roll a composed finish into the net, sending the ground into raptures as we sensed a comeback.

Wolfsburg were fully backs to the wall by now, playacting and time wasting but also throwing bodies at everything.

Skarke had a moment of magic to beat two men before his cross was crowded out, and also ballooned a customary volley over the bar.

Schäfer took a couple of distance pot shots which floated harmlessly over.

Rothe had been dangerous and his replacement Köhn carried on the threat, fighting down the left and getting a ball in which was stabbed goalwards in the melee, Grabara somehow keeping it out.

Rönnow was up for corners as we ticked into 5 added minutes, but nothing fell apart from Wolfsburg players, the referee very quick to blow against us.

And so with a sense of inevitability, the final whistle blew to confirm a pretty falling defeat.

We actually played quite well today, but luck and confidence were in short supply. A couple of moments of individual brilliance were enough for the visitors.

One win will probably see us safe, and really if we play like that with a little added composure, we'll get it. But it's still a little nervy at the moment as the season draws to a close.

But we should also look beyond today's game. In the second half, right in front of us there was an absolutely tiny little girl on her dad's shoulders, 2 years old at the most.

She had her bottle, her ear protectors and honestly a fucking magnificent custom denim jacket covered in Union patches.

Today she was among the first kids ever to look at the touchline and see a woman leading from the sidelines. I hope that occurrence becomes so commonplace that nobody even noticed it within a few years.

But it's pretty cool that our club is the first one where a little girl can look at the dugout of a men's game in one of Europe's top leagues and think "that could be me".

No better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Eisern!

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By @MarkJB on Bluesky