Chapter 993: DFB Pokal Once Again!

Well, yeah, before they entered the Bundesliga stage once again, they had to face VfL Wolfsburg first to fight for a ticket to the top 8 of the DFB Pokal.

At this point, though, Frohling had to think of whether he should take this competition seriously or not. After all, if the team wanted to get the title, it would take at least four games left, and it would only become more difficult as time went by.

Not only that, since all the DFB Pokal matches would be held in the middle of the week, forcing two or three games would definitely disturb the players’ rest time, and the coach knew that he still didn’t have a squad deep enough to rotate the whole 11 players and stay competitive at the same time.

So, yeah, this was a difficult choice to make for a person who hated losing more than anything else.

Still, in the end, Frohling finally relented. He knew that he couldn’t choose both competitions without risking his players’ hearts, so the boss finally decided to abandon the whole DFB Pokal to let the bench warmers have a chance to fight.

’Yeah, winning the competition will only get us to the Europa League, when we will just basically die if we cannot get into the UCL. Let’s just treat this as a warm-up session for the new players.’

As a result, when it was finally game time, the man put a lot of bench players, even the two new players as well, into the main squad.

Yeah, somehow, Ao Tanaka also got into the main roster even though his performance hadn’t met the coach’s standard yet. In Frohling’s words, the best way to adapt was, of course, to get beaten first; if Tanaka couldn’t even stand that, he would never be able to stay that long in the league.

Still, the man also had some of the main players on the bench, like Higo and Morita. Those two were basically his guarantee if the team managed to gain an upper hand, as... Who wouldn’t like to win the game?

The coach just came with the mentality of nothing to lose, but if they managed to get a lead, they would defend it as if their whole life depended on it.

Wolfsburg itself didn’t have any problem fighting for two competitions. Compared to Schalke, they had a healthier financial state, and since it had been a long time since they had a squad that could compete in all directions, there was no way they would let this chance slide easily.

As a result, they didn’t hold back anymore, putting almost all of their main players in the squad.

From the goalkeeper Koen Casteels, the captain Maximilian Arnold, to the Dutch national team’s striker Wout Weghorst, the away team showed that they were not here to mess around.

As a result, it was easy to see why Schalke got dominated since the beginning of the game.

The trio of Ao Tanaka, Alexander Schopf, and Amine Harit couldn’t really develop Schalke’s game properly. Well, not that Frohling expected it, since those three had never played together at the same time.

However, the end product on the pitch was way uglier than anyone could expect.

So many missed passes were on the board, and not just that, their communication during transitions to defense was also problematic.

Sometimes, Ao Tanaka wanted to kick the opponent’s possession out to the flank, and yet, the other two failed to understand his intention and just let the middle open to get the space that Tanaka left to be breached immediately after that.

Honestly, watching them play and comparing them to the usual trio of midfielders Nabil, Omar, and Morita was like heaven and hell, something that couldn’t be compared at all.

Still, the most fortunate thing was that Skhodran Mustafi didn’t take time to take on the role of the team’s leader on the back.

He didn’t hesitate to take over the command on the back, guiding everyone on where to go and which one to guard.

Combined with Timo Becker, who was decisive when following an order, they both managed to create a good barrier in front of Ralf Fahrmann to keep the opponent in the bay.

More than that, Mustafi was a defender who was proficient in playing with the ball, willing to take a risk to control it in his own area to drag the opponent to his side and open up space in the midfield.

For Frohling, this was definitely his ideal defender, much better than Stambouli and Malick Thiaw, who always put safety first and handed everything to the midfield.

Unfortunately, Mustafi wasn’t a perfect defender as well. No, the man had a tendency to overcommit, rushing out to join the midfield while also leaving one spot empty on the back.

He often made things more difficult for the whole team with his shady decision-making, controlling the ball for too long just to pass to a teammate who was under pressure when someone was coming at him.

Then, in the 40th minute, his worst mistake happened, as the man got the ball stripped from his possession quite violently.

Wolfsburg’s players didn’t hesitate to follow it up, as they moved the ball so quickly to the flank where their electric winger, Ridle Baku, had already charged forward.

Before anyone could stop him, the winger had already launched a high cross to the middle, still a little bit far from the six-yard box where Fahrmann was standing.

As a result, Wout Weghorst took off the ground without hesitation, beating Timo Becker in the aerial duel quite easily before putting the ball to the corner of the goal with his header.

BAM!

Fahrmann, who was trying his best to dive, couldn’t really stop the ball, and in the end, it just slipped through his defense and fell onto the back of the net.

Just five minutes before the first half was over, somehow, the away team managed to snatch the lead, getting themselves one step ahead to the quarter-final of the DFB Pokal.