Football United

The Wolves grabbed their thrid Bundesliga win of the season on Saturday afternoon, by way of a slender 1-0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in front of 17,121 in the VOLKSWAGEN ARENA.The goal of the day was scored by Argentinean striker Diego Klimowicz after 35 minutes.Thw win moves the Wolves up to fifth place in the Bundesliga table. It was the fourth Bundesliga goal of the season for Klimo, who latched onto a huge kick by his keeper Simon Jentzsch.

Skipper returns
The wolves coach Holger Fach made only one change to his side which superbly won 4-2 away at Hanover last time out.His fit-again skipper Pablo Thiam replaced Hans Sarpei in the starting line up against Frankfurt in round 7. His Frankfurt counterpart Friedhelm Funkel wasn't so fortunate. Funkael has been plagued by injury worries all season. After losing first choice keeper Pröll to an elbow injury, his stand-in Nikolov, picked up an adductor problem in midweek, and was unable to play in Wolfsburg. His place in the team went to third choice keeper Zimmermann. After their unlucky 0-1 defeat away to Bayern in round 6, Funkel made further changes. In defence Funkel chose Ochs instead of Spycher, in midfield he preferred Lexa, Weissenberger and Huggel to the suspeneded Jones, Meier and van Lent,who was replaced up front by Köhle.

Chess-like start
Wolfsburg began the game concentrated and patiently tried to crack the massed defences of the visiting side. The match resembled a game of chess as opposed to football during the opening period, as neither side could make any headway in front of goal. The first real chance of the game fell to fit-again Pablo Thiam, who went close with a header on 17 minutes. That close shave shocked Frankfurt, and they began to threaten the home side with counter attacks. During one of those moves, Lexa, superbly put through by Amanatidis, had done all the hard work by rounding Simon Jentzsch, only to see his effort cleared off the line by Neziri on 20 minutes. The visitors tried to keep the Wolves under pressure, but apart from a long distance pot by Weissenberger on 22 minutes, both keepers had a quiet time of things.

Klimo does the trick!
That was about to change, because on 35 minutes, a huge clearance by the Wolves keeper Jentzsch fell to Mike Hanke, who failed to control the ball. That seemed to irritate his marker Marko Rehmer, which gave Diego Klimowicz the chance to steal into the Frankfurt box from the right, from where he unleashed a nicely weighted shot into the bottm left hand corner to give the Wolves the lead. The only other Wolfsburg chance before half time fell to Mike Hanke, who headed the ball straight at Zimmermann 4 minutes from half time. The Wolves took a slender one goal lead into the break with them.

Patience is a virtue
The second half began pretty much as the first had done, with Eintracht waiting for the chance to counter attack, and the home side struggling to break down their well marshalled defence.The Wolves found no answer to the negative play of the visiting side and failed to reproduce the form which saw them totally dominate and then beat Niedersachsen rivals Hanover 4-2 away in round 6. The home side was void of ideas in midfield and frankfurt didn't have the fire power to cause the Wolfsburg defence many problems.

Mission accomplished!
Frankfurt's coach Funkel made one final throw of the dice as he brought on his veteran striker Arie van Lent. The move however was not to pay off, because the Dutchman failed to make an impact on the match during the few minutes he was on the pitch.The game finsished 1-0 to the Wolves. The side coached by Holger fach has taken 7 from a possible 9 points from the so-called English weeks, and have reached the target they had st themselves beforehand

WOLFSBURG: Jentzsch; Alex, Quiroga, Hofland, Neziri; Karhan, Thiam, Tskitishvili; d'Alessandro; Hanke, Klimowicz

EINTRACHT: J. Zimmermann; Rehmer, Chris, Vasoski; Preuß, P. Ochs, Huggel; Lexa, Weissenberger, Köhler; Amanatidis

GOALS: 1-0, Klimowicz (35')

BUNDESLIGA

Pos. Team Pld Pts
1. Bayern 7 18
2. Hamburg 7 17
3. Bremen 7 16
4. Hertha 7 14
5. Schalke 7 13
...
6. Wolfsburg 7 12

Source: vfl-woflsburg.der