Bochum 2-1 Dynamo Dresden

BOCHUM made a dream start to the 2012/13 2. Bundesliga season as the club’s midfield master and his apprentice got on the scoresheet to lead the team to a 2-1 win against Dynamo Dresden. Club stalwart Paul Freier bagged the winner three minutes from time, after 17-year-old debutant midfielder Leon Goretzka headed home in the 53rd minute to cancel out Mickaël Poté’s 27th-minute opener for Dresden. Bochum were by far the better of the two sides over the course of the match, and looked more adroit tactically, technically cleverer and sharper fitness-wise. Although Poté and experienced midfielder Filip Trojan showed occasional moments of their class, Dresden did little to inspire, even if they were ultimately let down by their inability to defend set-pieces. The day, though, will be forever remembered for yet another Freier winner, and a first ever senior goal for Goretzka – a player openly courted by Bayern Munich. As if Germany needs another precociously-talented teenage attacking-midfielder…

Match preview here.

Starting formations

Bochum (4-4-2, from right to left): Andreas Luthe; Carsten Rothenbach, Marcel Maltritz, Lukas Sinkiewicz, Florian Brügmann; Goretzka, Christoph Dabrowski, Christoph Kramer, Yusuke Tasaka; Alexander Iashvili, Zlatko Dedič

Dynamo Dresden (4-4-2 from right to left): Benjamin Kirsten; Cheikh Gueye, Romain Brégerie, Vujadin Savić, Sebastian Schuppan; Robert Koch, Anthony Losilla, Yiannis Papadopoulos, Trojan; Pavel Fořt, Poté

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Bochum-Dynamo Dresden preview

They’ve beaten West Ham United 3-0 and held English Premier League champions Manchester City to a 0-0 draw this summer, but such morale-boosting results will count for nothing if Dynamo Dresden don’t produce the goods on the pitch against Bochum this weekend. This is the first match of the 2012/13 2. Bundesliga season for these two sides, both of whom harbour promotion aspirations, and have the history to back such claims up: Bochum have spent seven of the last ten seasons in the top-flight, while Dresden are moving in the right direction after a decade and a half of difficulties following their relegation from the Bundesliga in 1995.

After an unbeaten pre-season, and with a victory at the RewirPower-Stadion already under their belts this calendar year (2-0 in March… preceded by a 2-1 home victory in September), Dresden will be the more confident of the two sides coming into this game (even if club captain Cristian Fiél did take the decision to step down from the role during the week for personal reasons, and promising young attacker Hasan Pepic was sentenced to seven days in a youth detention centre for fare-dodging on Wednesday). Bochum, meanwhile, have not been in the greatest form this summer (culminating in a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Borussia Mönchengladbach last Saturday), and star player Takashi Inui has left for pastures new (Eintracht Frankfurt).