After scoring, Marcel Sabitzer let out a long sigh of relief.
This goal completely ignited the passion of all the fans, and the entire Red Bull Arena boiled over.
Tens of thousands of fans cheered in unison, and the song “Stolz des Ostens” echoed throughout the stadium.
Marcel Sabitzer laughed and jumped onto Rolin’s back, and other teammates crowded around as well.
Hertha BSC players wore expressions of frustration on their faces.
They never expected that the second conceded goal would come so quickly.
The Hertha BSC manager angrily kicked a seat, clearly dissatisfied with the team’s defense.
On the other hand, for RB Leipzig, Ralph Hasenhüttl clapped hard, a brilliant smile on his face.
This Rolin is simply a treasure, delivering assists in three consecutive matches.
But this was also a happy trouble.
The 25-year-old Emil Forsberg was the team’s starting left attacking midfielder, right in his prime.
Last season, he made 32 appearances in the 2.
Bundesliga, contributing 8 goals and 7 assists, making him the player who directly created the most goals in the team.
Emil Forsberg was the midfield core of RB Leipzig and one of the offensive starting points of the 4-2-2-2 system.
Ralf Rangnick regarded him as the team’s core and renewed his contract until 2021, showing his status within the team.
As an inverted winger frequently stationed on the left flank, Emil Forsberg possessed extremely strong abilities in successive changes of direction and shaking off opponents in tight spaces.
His passing vision was exceptional, with superb foundations in short-passing penetration and ground-curling passes, while his long shots after cutting inside posed a tremendous threat.
Emil Forsberg’s shortcomings were also quite obvious.
His physical confrontation ability was relatively weak, making him prone to losing the ball under tight pressing; his speed and explosiveness were inferior to Rolin’s, and his straight-line sprinting ability was weaker.
Moreover, his defensive participation was relatively low, and his recovery coverage range was smaller.
On this point, Rolin was far stronger than Emil Forsberg.
Take the first half for example; if Rolin hadn’t retreated in time, RB Leipzig would very likely have conceded a goal.
Rolin demonstrated extremely strong abilities on both ends of offense and defense, and such a player was rare to come by.
Standing from a coach’s perspective, he would definitely prefer to use such a balanced player in offense and defense.
Ralph Hasenhüttl fell into deep thought.
This season, the team was knocked out of the cup early, allowing them to focus all their energy on the League.
But if the team could maintain their current ranking, they would definitely play in European competitions next season.
Coupled with the DFB-Pokal matches, they would face competing on three fronts.
By that time, he wouldn’t be troubled over who to start.
What he needed to do now was to let the players adapt to rotation in advance, preparing for next season’s multi-front campaign.
He believed that as long as he communicated properly with the players, no one would throw a tantrum over playing time issues.
In the 55th minute of the match.
Hertha BSC launched an attack on the left flank.
Defensive midfielder Per Skjelbred sent an overhead long pass from midfield.
Left-back Marvin Plattenhardt dashed directly behind Bernardo Fernandes, brought the ball down with the outside of his foot, and then quickly went down the flank to the baseline.
This time Bernardo Fernandes’s defense was not out of position, closely following Plattenhardt, ready to block the cross at any time.
Plattenhardt suddenly cut inside while moving, and then made a feint to pass.
Bernardo Fernandes closely followed with a sharp stop and turn, extending his left leg to block the pass.
However, Plattenhardt didn’t pass, gently flicked the ball with his right foot, and started up again.
This time Bernardo Fernandes was cleanly beaten.
Plattenhardt did not choose to cross, but instead dribbled horizontally along the baseline.
Because it was inside the penalty area, Demme, who came up to cover defensively, did not dare to tackle easily.
Plattenhardt observed that the teammates rushing to cover the middle had arrived, and directly made a cut-back cross.
At this time, RB Leipzig’s players had also retreated into position, and the penalty area was full of people.
Vladimír Darida stopped the ball at the edge of the penalty arc, feinted a shot to avoid Naby Keïta’s challenge, then dribbled horizontally to clear an angle, and unleashed a powerful shot with his right foot.
The power of this shot was huge, but the angle was too central, and it was steadily caught by Péter Gulácsi.
Hertha BSC’s attack this time was very threatening, nearly piercing RB Leipzig’s goal.
The fans on site gave applause for Péter Gulácsi’s save.
In the next dozen minutes, both sides launched several threatening attacks, but neither could change the scoreline.
During this period, Rolin was heavily marked by Hertha BSC.
Kalou was responsible for close marking, but as soon as Rolin got the ball, Skjelbred would come up to double-team immediately, giving him no chance to turn at all.
RB Leipzig therefore slowly shifted the focus of their attack to the right flank.
In the 72nd minute of the match.
RB Leipzig tore open the defense through successive short passes on the right flank.
Marcel Halstenberg high-speed dribbled through along the flank, passed a defensive player, and seeing no one rushing to cover in front of the goal, passed back to the middle.
After receiving the ball, Marcel Sabitzer feinted a shot and actually dragged it past the defender.
At the same time, Rolin pretended to move towards the middle, but suddenly turned and made a high-speed forward run along the flank.
His start speed was too fast; by the time Kalou reacted, Rolin had already entered the penalty area.
Marcel Sabitzer observed Rolin’s run, without any hesitation, decisively lifted his foot to make a diagonal pass into the penalty area.
Marcel Sabitzer passed this ball very timely; if it were a bit slower, it would have been offside.
Rolin puffed out his chest to bring down the ball, and without waiting for it to hit the ground, naturally flicked it horizontally with the outside of his foot.
Niklas Stark, who came up to cover defensively, was shaken off balance; by the time he stabilized his center of gravity and went up again, Rolin had already shot.
The ball traced a perfect arc, heading straight for the top right corner of the goal.
Rune Jarstein flew to save, but couldn’t touch anything.
3:0!
The quality of Rolin’s curled shot was too high, and the goalkeeper was powerless despite his intentions.
Red Bull Arena boiled over once again!
Led by the announcer, the fans chanted Rolin’s name.
Rolin sprinted to the corner flag area and made a heart gesture towards his family in the stands.
Lucas excitedly waved his fists, then hugged and celebrated with his family.
The broadcast camera also cut to the stands, giving Rolin’s family a close-up shot.
Ralph Hasenhüttl stood on the touchline with his hands in his pockets, unable to stop the smile on his face.
This ball was stopped beautifully, and shot beautifully too.
The most crucial thing was that he was very confident and dared to make moves, completely unlike an 18-year-old youngster.
On the German streaming platform Twitch, KevinKickz was going crazy: “That shot was absolutely gorgeous!
It’s definitely going to be in the top five goals of the week!” His chat was exploding: “I believe he is a genius now!” “His ball control was so good, and the connection from horizontal evasion to shooting was also very fast, simply perfect!” “2 goals and 1 assist last game, 1 goal and 2 assists this game!” “Why is he even playing for the U20 anymore, just get him straight to the senior national team!” “Getting seasoned in the U20 first is also fine, after all, the World Cup is still more than a year away.” “Was that his sister in the stands just now?
Wow!” Kevin leaned back and smiled: “Given his current ability, competing for the senior national team is still difficult; it’s better to level up in the U20 first.
There is still more than a year before the World Cup, which is enough time for him to grow.
It just depends on what height he can reach.” In the 78th minute of the match.
Ralph Hasenhüttl substituted Rolin off, letting him receive the fans’ applause alone.
The fans throughout the stadium chanted his name, and the applause and cheers lingered for a long time.
This treatment could be considered maxed out.
Rolin applauded and acknowledged the fans in the stands.
For him, this was a perfect home debut.
And from this moment on, he was the true Son of RB Leipzig.