When day had already turned into night, they were still standing on the lawn below, wrapped in thick thermal coats and looking at each other interestedly. Julian Nagelsmann, the trainer from RB Leipzig, and Oliver Glasner, his counterpart from VfL Wolfsburg, digged into the depths of football analysis. And so they stood for minutes in the freezing cold, they gesticulated, they philosophized, according to Glasner it must have been a really enriching conversation.
With all this harmony, it was all the more noticeable at the press conference that the two disagreed on one crucial point: For Glasner, the 2-2 draw in the home arena was “fair”; Nagelsmann, however, spoke of a missed victory for his Leipzig. In conclusion, it cannot be answered whose interpretation of the game was the right one, the events on the pitch were too contradictory.
On the one hand there was the slight optical superiority of the Leipzigers, there were also the “two thousand percent chances” that Nagelsmann was allowed to locate in the second half with his own, in addition to small advantages in statistics such as possession and tackling rate. On the other hand, there were also the very structured Wolfsburgs, who only conceded their goals because of colossal dropouts and who themselves brought a wonderful attack to the goal. And there were those Leipzigers again who simply cannot win against teams from the top six of the league. What was certain in any case: It was a wild argument between two teams who actually like to exercise control over their opponents in their own way.
Nagelsmann left center forward Sörloth on the bench for the entire season – despite his goal against Dortmund
On the side of Leipzig it was a little surprising that Nagelsmann left his center forward Alexander Sörloth on the bench for the entire game, although the massive Norwegian scored his first Bundesliga goal in the previous week in the 1: 3 defeat against Borussia Dortmund. Instead, the filigree Emil Forsberg, who is actually at home in midfield and has recently been called up as the “wrong nine” by his coach, played right at the front. The job of a fake nine is to hang around everywhere, to annoy the defenders permanently and not to camp too long at the opposing sixteen. As such a type of striker, Forsberg only appeared in the fourth minute when he received a through pass on the left side and passed the ball into the center with a lot of feeling – there his attacker colleague Nordi Mukiele was all alone for the goal to make it 1-0 .
The Wolfsburg have not offered their opponents that much space in the entire season, but from then on they defended again in a disciplined manner and in the first half were also the team that was most likely to have a connecting offensive idea. “The pressure from Wolfsburg increased,” admitted Nagelsmann, who was able to marvel in the 22nd minute how a real nine can make the penalty area his own: After a sharp cross from midfielder Yannick Gerhardt, Wout Weghorst hit a diving header was the eleventh goal of the season by the 1.97 meter tall striker.
As a result, Wolfsburg did not give up their spirited game, showed “a really, really good first half”, as Glasner said – and got the reward they deserved: midfielder Renato Steffen met in the 35th minute from a distance 2-1 lead, the ball was deflected significantly by Leipzig’s defender Willi Orban.
The fact that Leipzig no longer got out was also a matter of the lack of attackers
Nagelsmann, who praised Weghorst’s qualities “in the box”, for his part did without a physically imposing attacker in the second half. Due to a lack of efficiency, the idea with Forsberg was ended at half time; the Swede had to clear the field for Christopher Nkunku, who was also socialized in midfield and was a bad choice as a striker against the tall Wolfsburg central defense around John Anthony Brooks and Maxime Lacroix.
Meanwhile, Sörloth was on the bench next to storm colleague Yussuf Poulsen, who was substituted on in the final minutes. Leipzig played with the “maximum sharpness”, as Nagelsmann said, there were also wonderful opportunities in the second half, for example after shots from Amadou Haidara (83rd), Angeliño (84th); Wolfsburg’s midfielder Josuha Guilavogui once scratched Dani Olmo from the line (67th). The goal to equalize 2-2, however, was a rather crooked number: After a free kick, Haidara straddled the ball in the direction of the Wolfsburg goal, it rolled past all the men in green, goalkeeper Casteels let it bounce forward – right in front of Orban’s feet, who gratefully accepted this invitation (54th).
The fact that Nagelsmann did not jump out in the end was a “matter of exploiting opportunities”, but maybe it was also a matter of the missing striker. Glasner summed up that his team can now compete against the top teams of the league “in many phases”. Wolfsburg is “very, very good” this season, said Nagelsmann, “they have shown that this season.” And then they both agreed again.
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