Early goal by Briand
By replacing Felipe with Christian Schulz, Tayfun Korkut only made one change to the formation that started the 1-0 victory of Young Boys Bern. 96 got the perfect start to the game: After an Albornoz cross from the left wing, Jimmy Briand made the score 1-0 after only three minutes. Considering the following 87 minutes, it is a surprise that this was to be the only goal of the game. The Reds dominated the pitch and created one opportunity after another but failed to reward themselves. Halfway through the first stint, Briand tested Plzen keeper Kozácik twice more, but the Czech was on guard. Just before the break Leo Bittencourt found himself in a promising position twice but misfired on both occasions. Hannover were obviously missing the necessary level-headedness and efficiency. During the second half lack of accuracy in their own game play continued to pose much bigger problem than opposition that struggled to get past a stable 96 defence.

Chances over chances 
Joselu opened 96’s second-half attack with long-range effort that went right into the arms of the Viktoria shot-stopper. The Synot League table-toppers also claimed two rare opportunities. A header by Tecl was met by the bar in the 51st minute and Chramosta misfired after a counter-attack six minutes later. These efforts were met by an even larger dominance of Korkut’s team, but they could simply not manage to profit from any of their many excellent chances. Be it Bittencourt, Marcel, Joselu or Stindl with two efforts, the ball just would not go in. A moment 62 minutes into the game highlights how 96 suffered from their lack of level-headedness. Briand, Bittencourt and Joselu outnumbered the opposition in their own half, passing the leather forth and back between them, just do loose it in the end – an opportunity that footballers like to refer to as a “sitter”. When the late substitute Karaman also missed after finding himself completely unmarked in the area, it became clear that Hannover was just not meant to score another one. Instead, they would have to be content with a rather minimalist victory. In the end of the day, they had to be glad that the Czechs did not manage to land one of their few opportunities, such as Holenda’s header into Zieler’s arm four minutes before the final whistle.

Good game – bad chance conversion
96-head coach Tayfun Korkut addressed the mixed bag of impressions left by the game. “I can’t complain about the game. On the contrary, we created a lot of good chances and barely let the opponents have one,” he commented and praised the excellent passing play and the uncompromisingly solid defense. “However, you could also see that we didn’t get that second, third and fourth goal. This needs to improve. There is no way of sweet-talking the issue.” His players were “hasty and unfocussed” in front of the opposition goal. In the end, he was glad to at least have won the game. “A lot of things went well, that’s giving me a positive feeling. If the others had got the equaliser, I would’ve been quite upset.”

Hannover 96: Zieler - Sakai (77’ Stankevicius), Marcelo, Schulz, Albornoz (77’ Pander) - Schmiedebach (83’ Hirsch), Gülselam - Briand, Stindl (77’ Schlaudraff), Bittencourt (88’ Ernst) - Joselu (83’ Karaman)

Viktoria Plzen (Starting XI): Kozácik - Reznik, Procházka, Hubnik, Limersky - Hrosovsky, Kovarik, Vanek, Rajtoral - Kolar, Tecl

Goals: 1-0 Briand (3’)