Important victory: Magdeburg beats Düsseldorf

Two early goals gave 1. FC Magdeburg three important points in the fight against relegation. The Elbe club won 2-0 (2-0) against Fortuna Düsseldorf in front of 24,608 spectators. Laurin Ulrich (2nd) and Mateusz Zukowski (16th) scored for FCM, who climbed to 13th place with 33 points.

"I think Düsseldorf were a bit surprised themselves that they weren't able to do what they set out to do because we overran them. We don't need to talk about the importance of these three points," said FCM coach Petrik Sander.

Magdeburg's lightning start against unsure Fortunen

Alexander Nollenberger started for Richmond Tachie at Magdeburg, although he was unused to playing on the right. FCM were immediately well in the game and made the most of their first chance to score: Baris Atik played Musonda free on the left, whose cross Ulrich converted with aplomb. Shortly afterwards, Nollenberger failed to beat Florian Kastenmeier in the Fortuna goal. The visitors briefly tried to equalize quickly, but then withdrew and waited for counterattacks.

Magdeburg controlled the game and increased the lead to 2:0 through Zukowski after Atik's assist. As with the 1:0, the newly assembled Fortuna defense did not look solid. After the goal, Düsseldorf increasingly shifted the game into Magdeburg's half, pressed higher and had their first chance through Klaus Suso (22), but his shot went wide of the goal. The final goal was scored by Musonda - Kastenmeier made the save.

Two Magdeburg offside goals

The visitors came out of the break full of pressure and Dominik Reimann had to make a save in the FCM goal in the very first minute. Magdeburg were rarely able to build constructively, but after 55 minutes the ball was in the Fortuna goal again - but the goal did not count after a VAR review. At the other end, Cedric Itten hit the crossbar - the Düsseldorf player was also offside (61').

The visitors largely pinned FCM back in the second half and came close to scoring through Sotiris Alexandropoulos (65) and Itten (68). Magdeburg had more of the play in the closing stages, but the header by substitute Dariusz Stalmach (82) was disallowed for offside.