Werder Bremen 1-3 Borussia Monchengladbach
I swear you cannot write this up.
It’s the tail-end of the first half. The Bundesliga tie between Werder Bremen and Borussia Monchengladbach seems to be going nowhere. All of a sudden, Alassane Plea made a wonderful solo effort and scored the first of his hat-trick!
If you’re looking for Bundesliga 2018 highlights, look no further than this game. Plea showed us how a proper Bundesliga striker should score!
Highlights of the game
Borussia Monchengladbach should be able to keep Bayern Munich away from second place if the club manages a win against Bremen, so Die Fohlen were eager to get the game rolling and played at the Weserstadion as if it was the Borussia-Park.
Both sides were trading blows in the game’s first minutes as they tried to get into scoring in the game’s early minutes. The first bit of action, however, didn’t come for Gladbach until the 15th minute: a shoddy clearance by the Bremen defence saw the ball end up in front of Tobias Strobl’s feet. He then fired the ball towards the goal, but his attempt flew just wide of the left post.
From that point on, though, it seemed that Gladbach had control of the match flow. Thorgan Hazard, who has a growing reputation in European football, was heavily involved in the attacks, but his passes and runs haven’t resulted in anything significant for the guests.
However, it wasn’t like Die Grun-Wieben were just letting their fans witness them get run over by Gladbach time and time again. Their hot young talent in Maximilian Eggestein was involved in a number of attacks, one of which was a powerful long-range shot in the 21st minute. However, His shot went narrowly wide.
It did seem for a bit that Bremen managed to wrestle back some shred of control in the match as both sides were struggling to break through their opposing defences. However, Florian Kohfeldt’s lads weren’t able to keep Alassane Plea mum any longer.
The French striker, who was marked in the pre-match piece as one of the most dangerous target men in the Bundesliga, was able to latch onto a ball after a lack of productivity from his team. He managed to lose his two markers and launch a beautiful curling shot past Jiri Pavlenka. The travelling fans were obviously delighted with the progress.
Not much action happened from the 39th-minute goal until the end of the first half. However, Plea wasn’t planning on stopping his goal-scoring streak anytime soon.
It seemed like he wore his scoring boots today when he scored his second goal literally minutes after the reset. Hazard and Plea, two of the team’s stars, connected for the 48th-minute goal. Eden’s younger brother fired a low cross that went to Plea; the Frenchman immediately hit the ball and whizzed past Pavlenka for the second goal.
The live Bundesliga 2018 odds at SBOBET were immediately changing due to the progress. Plea hasn’t scored in three games, and the bookies weren’t really looking on him to score. But his two goals before fifty minutes changed all that.
He made it three in the 52nd minute after a bit of brilliant play from the team. After dispossessing the hosts in the midfield, they managed to run the ball down the left wing. Oscar Wendt fired a beautiful low cross to the open Plea who tapped the ball into the net to get his hat-trick.
Just when it seemed like Bremen were destined for another drubbing, Nuri Sahin gave the Weserstadion a reason to celebrate. Against the run of play, Ludwig Augustinsson fired a low cross to the open Turkish midfielder. His low-driven shot immediately whizzed past Yann Sommer to rob him of the clean sheet.
Die Grun-Wieben were immediately motivated after the move and started playing more passing football. The travelling Gladbach fans were worried that another high-scoring draw was in the cards for them.
However, the Gladbach defence were able to hold their ground and keep Bremen’s attacks away from the goal. The game eventually ended after three minutes of added time to end the game for the extremely ecstatic Gladbach side. Plea happily takes the match ball as he walks back to the showers.
Key statistics
Bremen weren’t able to make the most of their home and possession advantage. They shot 20 goal attempts on 54% possession, five more than the guests’ attempts. However, Gladbach were the more efficient side with six of their fifteen shots being on target.
However, it wasn’t like Bremen weren’t playing any defence at all. They made Gladbach commit seven offsides, and their seven fouls saw them become aggressive in the face of a deficit. However, the fact that they didn’t convert much of their attempts to goals was their undoing.
What’s next?
Bremen need to snap their losing streak if they want to keep themselves in contention for the European spots. However, next opponents in Freiburg and Bayern Munich will be as tough as they come. Kohfeldt must win against Freiburg if they want to keep their place.
Meanwhile, Plea and Gladbach are more than happy to keep second. They have a relatively easy match against Hannover coming up, but RB Leipzig will be an interesting challenge for them. Will they keep standing on second by the end of the month?
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