The brave newcomer from the historically smallest league location has now managed two wins in his first two Bundesliga games. Never before had a newcomer scored seven goals in his first two games. Of all 59 Bundesliga clubs over the course of 63 Bundesliga years, Elversberg is currently the only one to have a 100 percent win rate. The town of Spiesen-Elversberg, which has a population of 13,000, doesn't have a train station, but from there the train races through the football republic without brakes.
Anyone who thinks that the Elversbergers are in each other's arms full of happiness witnessed a bizarre scene in the basement of the Gladbach stadium. “Now look forward to it!”, grinning, coach Vincent Wagner teased the serious-looking sports director Christian Weber, who obviously couldn’t fully grasp everything that was just happening.
“This team has courage, they didn’t play at 3:3,” says coach Wagner
“I was very, very, very happy,” Weber later told SZ, “but I’m also somewhat happy internally.” The victories against Leverkusen and Mönchengladbach are, first and foremost, an expression of the footballing prowess of this cleverly assembled team - nevertheless, Weber admitted: "I do believe that we are currently surfing on a wave of euphoria." The 42-year-old, who only came to Elversberg in April as the successor to sports director Ole Book, who moved to Borussia Dortmund, said: “It is extraordinary how we have already managed to prove in two games that we can keep up in the Bundesliga.”
In the first game against Leverkusen, the Elversbergers were 2-0 up after nine minutes and then made it 3-0 in the 46th minute before conceding two goals and ultimately making it 3-2 over time. This time, in Mönchengladbach, they showed that they can also master a contrasting dramaturgy. Gladbach's 1-0 by Hugo Bolin (11th) was quickly equalized by David Mokwa (20th), before Gladbach pulled away to 3-1 again thanks to Bolin (44th) and Joe Scally (56th). Nobody should have been surprised at that moment if the young and Bundesliga-inexperienced Elversberg team had trolled themselves in the face of such blows to the neck. But that's just not how this team works, and that mentality is obviously an important part of their success so far.
Sports director Weber says: “This team embodies the certainty that they will always continue to play football, always remain courageous, always think offensively and can always come back.” This is the “Elversberg DNA”, which every new player also receives. And so even when they were 1:3 behind in Gladbach, they continued to play their offensive football tirelessly and courageously until Maurice Krattenmacher, 21, who trained at FC Bayern, made it 2:3 in the 66th minute; until Felix Keidel, 23, equalized 3-3 with a wonderful free kick in the 80th minute; and until Krattenmacher scored the 4-3 winning goal in the second minute of stoppage time. The 2,000 Elversberg fans who traveled with us couldn't believe their eyes.
“This team has courage, they didn’t play to hold on at 3-3,” said coach Wagner, 40, who had to watch the showdown from the upper tier. Shortly before and during the break, out of resentment over an incorrect throw-in decision in favor of Gladbach, which led to 2-1, he entered the pitch and looked sternly at the referee Martin Petersen, for which he was punished with a yellow-red card (Petersen: “Unsportsmanlike behavior!” – Wagner: “Silent protest!”).
Coach Wagner is now suspended against FC Bayern of all teams
The banishment from the edge of the pitch up under the stadium roof gave Wagner an unwanted but even better view of the action, so that he said afterwards: "We are an extremely great unit, we believe in ourselves, we can play football very well and we know it. We are stable, have a cool mentality on and off the pitch." Wagner is a trained sports and history teacher and can give emotional presentations. But his best sentence about the two victories in the first two Bundesliga games was extra dry: “I’m not surprised!”
After the game, Wagner had to leave soon. In the evening he was a guest in the ZDF sports studio and described his extraordinary life journey from teacher at the Leibniz-Gymnasium in Essen to Bundesliga coach in Elversberg. Wagner once played as a central defender for Rot-Weiss Essen for many years, so he can handle the ball a bit. He shot at the goal wall in the gym in his socks and hit once at the bottom and once at the top.
Next Sunday (5.30 p.m.) he and his team will host FC Bayern in the top game, who are currently even behind Elversberger in the table with two points less. However, he tries to take it calmly that he will be suspended because of his yellow-red card against Bayern. “I have a very good coaching team,” he says, “and I’m happy for my assistant coaches Pascal Bieler and Mike Frantz that they’re getting a little more focus.”
The sports director Weber is also not afraid of Bayern. “It’s going to be a game we just have to enjoy,” he says, “a bonus game.” Let's see who gets the bonus points at the end.
