Led by Timo Werner, RB Leipzig easily advanced to the second round. As expected, the defending champion defeated the fourth division team Teutonia Ottensen 8-0 (4-0) on Tuesday. Werner (19th minute/20th/43rd), André Silva (41st/53rd), Emil Forsberg (56th), Christopher Nkunku (77th) and Dani Olmo (90th) scored in front of 13,084 fans in the Leipzig stadium. .
But the determining issue was the venue – or better: the one where both sides would have preferred to play. The game took place in Leipzig because Ottensen only has an artificial turf pitch, no alternative could be found in Hamburg and the turf at the alternate pitch in Dessau had been damaged.
In any case, Teutonia’s President Liborio Mazzagatti used the big stage again to criticize FC St. Pauli. Because the second division team had refused Ottensen to play the home game in the first round at the Millerntor Stadium, the game finally kicked off in Leipzig via another detour.
“I have no understanding at all of FC St. Pauli’s reasoning, I have to be honest,” said Ottensen’s club boss: “Putting forward the RB project and ideology as a reason is simply not worthy of a professional club,” he explained.
St. Pauli justified its decision by saying “that we don’t want to make the Millerntor available as a stage for the game between Teutonia and Leipzig, because the Millerntor is a symbol for a ‘different type of football’ – and is therefore extremely unsuitable for it party”.
You can understand that, “but this is a small club speaking, the neighbors of FC St. Pauli”. It was the biggest game in the club’s history and they would have liked to have played it in Hamburg, emphasized the 48-year-old Mazzagatti.
He received support from his opponents: “I think it’s a shame that ideological reasons at St. Pauli meant that Teutonia couldn’t play in Hamburg. I mean, it’s a neighboring district, and it would certainly have been the right venue there,” said Leipzig’s managing director Oliver Mintzlaff: “Now we’re standing here and are in the Red Bull Arena.”
The Leipzig club officials also decided to forego income from the game. The game was initially supposed to be kicked off in Dessau, but the pitch of the Paul-Greifzu Stadium was so damaged there that the game had to be relocated again.
“We have decided that we will make all the income available to Teutonia and that we will certainly also take care of the lawn. Dessau is a sports city and we will see that we can give the city a helping hand,” said Mintzlaff, who had nothing to complain about in terms of sport with his B team.
Coach Domenico Tedesco made six changes to the starting eleven compared to the first win of the season against Wolfsburg. That didn’t inhibit the flow of the game, but Ottensen was simply too inferior. Silva’s (8th) header against the post was still a warning, then Werner basically made the decision with a brace. The national striker also prepared Silva’s third goal before he scored the break himself.
After the change, Silva raised, then Forsberg hit the heel – before Tedesco made four changes and switched from a back three to a back four. Leipzig got bogged down a little too often in the beautiful game, substitute Nkunku scored after a long period without a real chance before Olmo was also successful.
