Markus Babbel pushes VfB to 3-0 victory over Energie Cottbus

Since taking over the coaching reigns Markus Babbel has had a pronounced and visible impact upon VfB. As evidenced by Saturday's 3-0 victory over Energie Cottbus, VfB is a "new" team, hungry for focus and focused upon attaining it. This showed immediately in Cottbus, as only four minutes in ex-Dinamo Bucureşti Ciprian Marica passed to Roberto Hilbert at the edge of the area, for which the German international crisply delivered the ball to the back of the net. Lausitzer didn't back down and went on the hunt to level but Jens Lehmann would have nothing of that nonsense, pushed his forces on and denied every opportunity. The day was to be VfB's and three minutes past the hour Cacau swept a well weighted pass to veteran Jan Šimák who didn't hesitate doubling the margin. The match was no longer in doubt as Sami Khedira made in 3-0 with twenty-two minutes remaining.

Following the match Markus Babbel said:

"The decisive thing today was that during the critical phases of the game we held our own and battled hard where necessary. Sure, we had some luck on our side but the second goal pretty much decided things. I said at the break that we would need to use our counter attacks more effectively and that's just what we did. We knew it would be no easy task and that's why I'm so happy that we took on the fight and played passionately."