A solitary goal from Dominik Stroh-Engel was enough for Darmstadt to get past RB Leipzig who couldn't convert the few chances they had.
5th played 4th in this 2nd division meeting, Darmstadt were coming off the back of a 1-1 draw against fellow surprise package FC Heidenheim, who were promoted with RB Leipzig into the 2nd tier. RB Leipzig also gained a point in the last match day, drawing 0-0 against another high-flyer in FC Kaiserslautern.
Darmstadt manager Dirk Schuster made 2 changes to his side as Leon Balogun and Marco Sailer failed to make today’s squad and were replaced in the starting line up by Milan Ivana and Sandro Sirigu. Rasen Ballsport made changes as well as Terence Boyd and Diego Demme took the places of Daniel Frahn and Stefan Hierländer.
The decision to include Sirigu paid off almost immediately as he had an early opportunity to put his side ahead. Tobias Kempe head the ball on for the right back to chase down and once he controlled he managed to get his effort away but Fabio Coltorti saved easily. This delayed Darmstadt for less than a minute as Dominik Stroh-Engel, who hadn’t scored in 5 games, made 2 goals in his last two games with a close range header. Marcel Heller sped down the right-hand side before crossing the ball to an unmarked Stroh-Engel who simply directed it home.
Despite their superb start they nearly shot themselves in the foot in the 11th minute when a Leipzig corner wasn’t initially cleared and Tim Sebastian’s cross was turned onto his own post by midfielder Hanno Behrens. Once they got that out of their system they resumed their attack with Stroh-Engel wasting his 2nd effort of the game after he couldn’t connect with the ball.
RB Leipzig did have their chances in the first half, Captain Dominik Kaiser had a brilliant shot from the edge of the box which he put just over the crossbar but had it been on target then it would’ve surely beaten Christian Mathenia who was scrambling across his goal. Alexander Zorniger’s men then had a goal disallowed after a short corner from Kaiser led to a header by Boyd but when the ball was played back to Kaiser before he crossed it he was in an offside position.
On the verge of half-time Darmstadt had their final chance of the half when a wonderful ball on the spin from Kempe found Ivana inside the box but the Slovakian couldn’t get the ball under control and as a result his effort was poor.
The 2nd period of football kicked off once again with a Darmstadt attack as Ivana broke down the left but with Stroh-Engel open inside the box his chipped cross was poor, sailing well over the big striker. In the 55th minute Leipzig had their best chance of the game to pull level when a through ball found Yussuf Poulsen inside the box and 1-on-1 with Mathenia but the Danish striker sent his shot staright into the face of the German keeper and the 22-year old spent a considerable amount of time on the ground.
Darmstadt continued to come forward but in the 65th they yet again could not put the game away as the ball was headed back in from a Darmstadt corner but Florian Jungwirth couldn’t make decent contact with the ball resulting in an easy save. 3 minutes later they had a goal disallowed after Heller produced another quality run and cross down the right which Kempe headed on for Stroh-Engel who was flagged offside before his initial shot was turned in by a teammate.
The final 20 minutes produced a unsatisfying ending to a thoroughly entertaining game as the only effort worth commenting on was when Kempe missed an open goal from a tight angle and a quite a large distance. They regained the ball on the left-hand side and played down the line and Kempe made his run from inside to out and just got to the ball before Coltorti but from the side-line he couldn’t convert.
