(Football news) In their most recent Bundesliga match, the hosts lost 3-2 to Augsburg, who had 10 players, while Die Roten Bullen destroyed Koln, scoring six goals without a response. Although Wolfsburg’s problems do not lie in breaking through opposition rearguards, as evidenced by the impressive play of Danish striker Jonas Wind in the last third of the game, Niko Kovac’s team failed to combine attacking excellence with defensive mastery for the third straight game.
After Phillip Tietz’s opening goal, Wind’s eighth top-flight goal of the season and a Lovro Majer penalty put Wolfsburg ahead against Augsburg. However, Sebastian Bornauw’s own goal levelled the score two minutes before Arne Engels made the game-winning kick.
Wolfsburg has had a Halloween horror show in October; defeats to Stuttgart and Bayer Leverkusen have sent Kovac’s team to ninth in the standings. Not even a late red card to Felix Uduokhai, one of several players to enter the referee’s book during an ill-tempered battle, could spark a late comeback for Wolfsburg.
The hosts this week have only one title to show for their efforts, having defeated Borussia Dortmund in the 2015 showpiece. Prior to their worrying decline in luck, Wolfsburg began their season with a 6-0 annihilation of minnows TuS Makkabi Berlin in their DFB-Pokal opener.
A few months after their six-goal performance in the DFB-Pokal, Wolfsburg must test their mettle against a team that is no stranger to a result like this. Only one of the team’s last 11 competitive games at the Volkswagen Arena has seen Kovac’s men fail to make the net bulge.
While RB Leipzig defeated Wehen Wiesbaden 3-2 on the strength of a brace from Benjamin Sesko and an Emil Forsberg goal that proved to be the game-winning goal, the manner of the team’s first DFB-Pokal triumph of the season was far less dramatic.
The latter was once again on the scoreboard when Koln visited town over the weekend, but Leipzig’s ruthless crop ran out 6-0 winners to earn their third straight victory in all competitions, so Steffen Baumgart’s troops could be wishing they had not bothered.
The lethal young duo of Lois Openda and Xavi Simons once again stole the show as the former scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season at the Red Bull Arena off of Simons’s fifth and sixth assists. Timo Werner, David Raum, and Christoph Baumgartner all added another goal to their totals.
Looking to win the DFB-Pokal for a record third time in a row in 2023–24, RB Leipzig has not been eliminated in the second round since losing to Bayern Munich in a penalty shootout during the 2017–18 campaign. They are in excellent shape after winning five straight games away from home.
In the past, Leipzig has won three straight DFB-Pokals against Wolfsburg, and Leipzig has also defeated Wolfsburg by an overall score of 7-0 in the last three Bundesliga games. Die Roten Bullen have also been a pain in Wolfsburg’s side in previous years.
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