Football United

The Wolves coach Holger Fach presented new signing Alex in his starting line-up for the visit of Bayer Leverkusen to the VOLKSWAGENARENA on Saturday afternoon. Frenchman Steve Marlet, who joined the club at the same time as Alex, was on the bench at the start. Menseguez took the place on the suspended Klimowicz alongside Mike Hanke up front. The visiting coach Klaus Augenthaler was without Krzynowek in Wolfsburg. His place in the team went to the Croatian Babic. Juan was preferred to the former Borussia Dortmund defender Madouni.

First headed goal for Andres!
Both sides started the game in a cautious mood and misplaced passes were the order of the day, during the opening minutes of the match. On 22 minutes, a fine solo run by Leverkusen’s Babic saw him leave Alex and Quiroga in his wake, before producing a perfeclty weighted cross onto the head of Berbatov, who nodded home his third goal of the season unmarked. After that goal, the game got bogged down in midfield for a while. On 39 minutes, the Wolves drew level as little Andres D’A lessandro scored his first Bundesliga goal with his head, after good approach work by Hans Sarpei. The sides went into the break on even terms.

Captain goal-getter!
Leverkusen began the second half the better of the two sides and Slavo Freier tested Simon Jentzsch shortly after the restart. Minutes later the home side went ahead as Menseguez brilliantly reached the by-line, from where he crossed the ball onto the head of the unmarked Wolves skipper Pablo Thiam, who nobody in the Bayer defence had picked up. Thiam nodded home easily and unchallenged on 54 minutes. The visitors tried to up the tempo, but the home defence was up to the challenge. Both sides had further chances resulting from counter attacks, the best of which fell to Leverkusen’s Schneider and Wolfsburg’s Hanke.

Bayer down to nine men!
The attacking efforts of the visiting side were abruptly ended 15 minutes from the end, as they had two players sent off for fouls on D’Alessandro. The first to go was Roque Junior on 76 minutes. Marlet came on for his Wolves debut and watched as Babic made a rash challenge on the Wolves playmaker from behind, and was sent off by the match referee Sippel a minute into injury time. The game was of course over by then and on the balance play, the Wolves were well worth their first victory of the new season.

WOLFSBURG: Jentzsch; Alex, Quiroga, Hofland, Sarpei; Thiam; Karhan, Tskitishvili; d'Alessandro; Menseguez, Hanke

BAYER LEVERKUSEN: Butt; Castro, Juan, Roque Junior, Athirson; Ramelow; Freier, Babic; B. Schneider; Voronin, Berbatov

GOALS: 0-1, Berbatov (22'); 1-1, D'Alessandro (39'); 2-1, Thiam (54')

BUNDESLIGA

Pos. Team Pld Pts
1. Bayern 3 9
2. Bremen 3 7
3. Hamburg 3 7
4. Schalke 3 7
5. Kaseirslautern 3 6
...
7. Wolfsburg 3 5