Goal Breakdown : the Augsburg counter that beat Leipzig

Intro

Augsburg won an evenly contested match over Leipzig, as you can see from the stats from Squawka

and the XG maps of 11tegen11

both show that there was nothing between the two sides:

How did it happen?

We’ve already covered Augsburg stunning win against Leipzig and FCA’s wonderful early season form here, but it’s worth analyzing the goal that got them the victory.

A brilliant counterattack finished by Michael Gregoritsch in the fourth minute was all Augsburg needed to keep all three points in the WWK Arena. Let’s quickly break down the goal in a series of pictures thanks to our friends at InStat:

It begins by FCA (white) pressing Leipzig (grey), but GK Yvon Mvogo is able to beat the press with a nice crossfield pass to Marcel Halstenberg (bottom of the pic) that launches RBL into a counter!

Halstenberg finds Poulsen (top left), who after a wonderful turn lays it off to the side for the cross to RB Schmitz, while LB Halstenberg is making a run into the box!

Moravek gets lucky with his clearance, as it bounces to Philipp Max, whose clearance doubles as an excellent outlet to Caiuby (top right corner). Leipzig are in trouble, because they got 7 guys behind the ball, including the fullbacks!

There’s a good layoff by Caiuby and while there’s an argument that FCA were lucky with the 2 clearances bouncing their way, the next part of the play is pure brilliance by Daniel Baier: a one touch outlet ball that finds Finnbogason

The Icelander who has only Marvin Compper ahead of him does wonderfully to head it down in front of Caiuby and at this point it’s a 2 v 1  with 60 yards in front of them!

Caiuby storms past Compper and has Finnbogason at the far post:

However this cross is too strong and it looks like the play breaks down!

But the Icelander does brilliantly to spot the secondary trailing run of Gregoritsch amidst 3 Leipzig defenders:

The Austrian controls it really well and slots it under the unlucky Mvogo! 1-0 FCA!

A somewhat fortunate beginning to a counter attack, but the last 3-4 steps were executed flawlessly and Leipzig were powerless to stop it. Let us know if you enjoyed this analysis by dropping a line in the comments!

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Abel Meszaros

editor at BundesligaFanatic

Abel started out watching and playing soccer in Hungary, before falling in love with the Bundesliga in the mid -90s (thanks to Kicker and Sat1's Ran). Now, he's in the USA -- and still loving it all many years later. Abel is faithful to BVB, but also endlessly fascinated by the emergence of new teams and talents from Germany, to the point that he even started a website about it, at www.bundespremierleague.com. Otherwise, you can find him working in publishing, teaching ESL, and/or drinking craft beer - not necessarily at the same time, or in that order. Abel tweets at @VanbastenESL and @BundesPL

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