<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t5<\/i><\/p>\n
SV Elversberg entered their maiden Bundesliga campaign carrying more questions than perhaps any other club in the division. Get German Football News<\/strong> ultimately tipped the Saarland newcomers to finish dead last in our 2026\/27 Tactical Preview set<\/a>. An incredible result on the first matchday of the new campaign reminded all those associated with German football punditry why it\u2019s important that the matches are actually played.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s remarkable 3-2 victory over Bayer Leverkusen<\/a> supplied a rather emphatic answer to the question of whether Elversberg can compete at Bundesliga level. Elversberg raced into a 2-0 lead inside nine minutes \u2013 faster than any Bundesliga newcomer had ever managed two goals \u2013 and spent much of their top-flight debut attacking and pressing with precisely the same lack of inhibition that carried them out of the \u00a0second division.<\/p>\n Wagner\u2019s team also notched the 3-0 seconds after the second half kicked off.<\/p>\n There were warnings along the way. Leverkusen created enough chances to punish SVE, while the closing stages exposed how uncomfortable Wagner\u2019s side can become when forced away from their preferred possession game and into simple damage-control football. For Wagner, however, that only reinforced the central lesson of the afternoon. Elversberg\u2019s courage is not merely an aesthetic preference. The coach believes it represents their only realistic path toward surviving in the Bundesliga.<\/p>\n \u201cWe played the type of football we envisioned for 70 minutes,\u201d Wagner noted in his opening statement. \u201cThe final ten minutes of the first half, we weren\u2019t able to keep up as much. We sought to address this during the break and then got off to a good start in the second half. At the end, Leverkusen had [strikers] Schick, Kofane, and Boniface on the field along with some fullbacks capable of bombing down the flank.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe also had a bit of luck,\u201d Wagner continued. \u201cOne has to be honest about that. An xG rate of 1.3 [for us] to 2.1 [for them]. What\u2019s nice is that, when we play our courageous brand of football against the ball, we can keep up. What one can also see is that, when we\u2019re not intelligent and can only manage small things, we can get punished by a good opponent. Luckily, our opponent didn\u2019t take all of their chances today.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe nevertheless accomplished the important goal of winning our first [Bundesliga] match,\u201d Wagner concluded. \u201cWe fortunately did this with our fans behind us. [We\u2019re] small, yet mighty. Now we\u2019ll focus on our training week and get set to travel to Gladbach. It certainly won\u2019t get any easier.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs a promoted team, we\u2019re coming out of a phase in which we played that type of football,\u201d Wagner responded to a later question asking how Elversberg managed to begin the match without nervous jitters and with full confidence. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy today as we had 10 Bundesliga debutants [in the starting XI]. There was plenty of mystery surrounding this group.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s our quality and it must remain our quality also when we take some nasty knocks [in future matches],\u201d Wagner continued. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to continue to play courageous football as it\u2019s the only way we\u2019re going to have a chance in this league. One saw that the times we went into \u2018managerial mode\u2019, it became difficult. In the moments we were brave, we had our chances.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we need a lot more of that, because when it comes to football, we have nothing to be ashamed of in those moments,\u201d Wagner concluded. \u201cWe demonstrated that last year. This year, it will be even more difficult, but it\u2019s the only chance we have [of staying in the league].\u201d<\/p>\n GGFN<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Peter Weis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 5 SV Elversberg entered their maiden Bundesliga campaign carrying more questions than perhaps any other club in the division. Get German Football News ultimately tipped the Saarland newcomers to finish dead last in our 2026\/27 Tactical Preview set. An incredible result on the first matchday of the new campaign reminded all those associated with German…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5467,1958,5469,384,5466,5470,5468,2689,5465],"class_list":["post-3367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-brave","tag-bundesliga","tag-elversbergs","tag-football","tag-insists","tag-lifeline","tag-serve","tag-vincent","tag-wagner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Vincent Wagner speaks on Elversberg\u2019s historic Bundesliga debut<\/h3>\n