Sunday, February 1, 2009

Berliners hold back Adler with Marko Pantelić scoring twice

Die Adler problems away from home continued with their fourth successive loss on the road as they lost 2-1 to the Berliners. The match marked the return of Alexander Meier and it was definitely a good start as he showed good attacking vision and linked up team play with precision. In addition Nikola Petković, who just came over from Crvena zvezda, marked his debut in the back line and by all accounts received good grades from Friedhelm Funkel.

However it was Petković’s fellow Serbian international Marko Pantelić who opened the scoring for the Berliners after seventeen minutes as got on the end of a rebound from Andriy Voronin’s attempt and sent the ball in. Markus Pröll was called for bringing down Pantelić in the area just past the half hour but the goalkeeper redeemed himself by stopping Cícero’s attempt. The match settled down after and a few minutes after the break Nikola Petković had the first significant effort by Frankfurt at Jaroslav Drobný but it didn’t find the netting. However the Marko Pantelić show continued as he went on the great run and pounded the ball in from twenty-two meters to make it 2-0. Benjamin Köhler brought a goal back only three minutes later as he was in the right place to send the rebound of Martin Fenin volley that went off the post, into the net. Die Adler injury problems continued at the fifty-eighth minute as Markus Pröll injured his knee and Jan Zimmermann was called on his first service of the year. The Berliners were no longer running the play of the match with Alexander Meier coming close on the hour and Léonard Kweuke threatening with twenty minutes left but each attempt fell in vain and the match ended 2-1. In conclusion it was a strong team effort and many things to be confident of, particularly the play of Alexander Meier and Nikola Petković.

Next week - Köln!