VfL Wolfsburg suffered a 3-2 defeat against Hannover 96 in their fourth pre-season friendly of the summer on Saturday afternoon. Marcel Halstenberg put the hosts ahead from the penalty spot in the eighth minute in front of 2,200 fans at the Eilenriedestadiongegen, but the Wolves equalised almost immediately through Jakub Kaminski (11’). Halstenberg had a chance to restore Hannover’s lead with another spot-kick, but this time Marius Müller was able to save. Mohamed Amoura put VfL 2-1 up shortly before half-time (44’), but Nicolo Tresoldi restored parity for Hannover soon after the restart (47’). Jessic Ngankam came off the bench to hit a late winner for the hosts in what was an evenly balanced game overall. The Wolves head off to a training camp in Schladming between 1-9 August as they fine tune their preparations for the new season, before playing their final friendly in Brentford on 9 August at 19:45 CEST.
Late defeat
“Really good in spells”
Ralph Hasenhüttl: “You could see in the final 20 minutes that we were a bit tired. We didn’t have that many substitutes available to bring on. We deliberately didn’t put on players like Maxence Lacroix, who played 90 minutes on Wednesday, in order to manage their workload. It was a good game up until midway through the second half. But Hannover are just a week away from their first competitive game, whereas we still have a bit more time. Nevertheless, it was a a very good test for us against another opponent that plays in a different way. We were really good in spells, but we ran out of steam towards the end.”
Line-up and stats
Hannover 96: Zieler – Neumann, Halstenberg (79‘ Uhlmann), Knight – Muroya (84‘ Momuluh), Kunze (46‘ Christiansen), Leopold (84‘ Ndikom), Dehm (59‘ Ezeh), Gindorf (59‘ Lee) – Tresoldi (59‘ Ngankam), Nielsen (46‘ Voglsammer)
Subs: Weinkauf (GK)
VfL Wolfsburg: Müller (46‘ Pervan) – Odogu (26. Amoako), Bornauw, Jenz, Baku (64‘ Cozza), Arnold (71’ Gerhardt), Dardai (89‘ Dittrich), Kaminski, Bröger (46‘ Tomas) – Behrens, Amoura (89‘ Benedict)
Subs: Grabara (GK), Braun
Yellow cards: Dehm / Amoako, Arnold
Goals: 1-0 Halstenberg (8‘/pen), 1-1 Kaminski (11‘), 1-2 Amoura (44‘), 2-2 Tresoldi (47‘), 2-3 Ngankam (88‘)
Referee: Lukas Benen
Attendance: 2,200 at Eilenriedestadion (Hannover)
