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Bremen's Romano Schmid transfers Cottbus' Axel Borgmann (r.)
Photo:
Robert Michael / dpa
Werder Bremen feared, Union Berlin faltered – but in the end the first division teams prevailed: on Monday evening, the favorites needed more effort than they would have liked on their way to the second round of the DFB Cup.
They were spared the fate of Bayer Leverkusen, Cologne and Hertha BSC a few days before the start of the Bundesliga.
Werder won 2-1 (1-0) at the regional league team Energie Cottbus and thus avoided going out of the first round like last year.
Last year's semi-finalist Union even needed extra time to win 2-1 (0-0) in the East duel against regional league team Chemnitzer FC.
Kevin Behrens caused the Köpenickers to breathe a sigh of relief with his powerful header in the 114th minute.
Jordan Siebatcheu (64th) had previously equalized the lead in Chemnitz by Tobias Müller (62nd) and thus only saved the capital club in extra time.
The goals of Romano Schmid (43rd) and Mitchell Weiser (73rd) were enough for Bremen, who had been promoted to the first division, to progress in the sold-out stadium of friendship.
Substitute Tim Heike (79th) managed to get back the goal, but the equalizer didn't come in a heated final phase.
"We've achieved our goal, we've progressed," said goal scorer Schmid: "That was a lot of work.
It was very important that we could survive periods of pressure.
We will also need that in the league.«
Second division team Darmstadt 98 meanwhile didn't let anything burn.
The lilies won 3-0 (2-0) at FC Ingolstadt, which is lower in their class, and gave coach Torsten Lieberknecht the perfect present on his 49th birthday.
mkl/dpa/sid
