Werkself beat Ajax - with Panos and Joel

The first good news at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium was contained in the team sheets:  Panos Retsos and Joel Pohjanpalo, two long-term absentees, returned to the Werkself squad after recovering from injury.  The 20-year-old Greek made his first start since the Europa League home game against Ludogorets in November 2018. "It was an important game for players who haven't played much recently. Above all, for Panos  who was out injured for a long time. He did well today," was the assessment of Peter Bosz.

attractive first half

"It was difficult at the start because Ajax applied a lot of pressure - we weren't able to build up from the back like we normally do," said the 55-year-old Dutchman after the final whistle. Indeed: Playing in the usual 4-3-3 formation, the Werkself initially  made a worse start than the visitors from the Netherlands – the former Schalke player Klaas-Jan Huntelaar only hit the bar on nine minutes but, shortly after that, it turned out better for the team currently second in the Eredivisie: After counter-pressing high up the pitch, Zakaria Labyad won the ball, quickly passed to Huntelaar and, in turn, he set up the 19-year-old Brazilian Danilo  - 1-0 for the visitors (16'). The Werkself responded well and had good chances through Paulinho (31') and Lucas Alario (28', 38') before the ball finally found the back of the visitors' net on 40 minutes. Karim Bellarabi, who had just missed the target a few minutes before, scored a deserved equaliser with an assist from Dominik Kohr. In an interesting friendly, with both teams playing on  the front foot, Ajax another big chance to retake the lead before half-time -  but the bar came to the rescue and denied Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.

Paulinho uses his head

In spite of all the pleasure at the comeback of Panos Retsos, it was clear that Peter Bosz did not want to take any risks - so he substituted the centre back at the break with the youngster Jan Boller coming on. Just five minutes after the restart, Bellarabi found Paulinho with a great lob: The Brazilian headed the ball over the onrushing keeper Bruno Varela into the net - 2-1 for the Werkself (50'). The two teams then traded blows and Lucas Alario could have scored twice for the Werkself (53', 54'). The game slowed somewhat after the hour mark and both sides produced misplaced passes. However, there was another highlight in the game: That came on 77 minutes - after over a year on the sidelines through injury, Joel Pohjanpalo was clearly happy to come off the bench. The 24-year-old  Finn entered the fray with a broad smile on his face - and he helped see out the 2-1 win with his team-mates. After the game his coach revealed: "Joel asked me if it was possible for him to play for a few minutes. Of course, it was a bit soon as he's only been training with the team for a week. But I really enjoyed watching him play for a few minutes. He's fought and worked incredibly hard for that."
Bayer 04: Özcan (Kirschbaum 46') – L. Bender, Retsos (Boller 46'), S. Bender, Weiser – Kohr, Schreck, Paulinho (Pohjanpalo 77') – Bellarabi, Alario, Kiese Thelin