Wolfsburg beat Eintracht Frankfurt

Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund sent out a message with their impressive performances and wins earlier on MatchDay 1 weekend, so VfL Wolfsburg were under pressure to follow suit. They duly secured the three points against Frankfurt, albeit not in the swashbuckling style seen by the Bavarians and the yellow-blacks.

Wolfsburg backup Koen Casteels maintained his place in goal for the Wolves with Diego Benaglio out, while Luis Gustavo was still not fully fit following his injury so Josh Guilavogui continued to deputise in midfield. Daniel Caligiuri dropped to the bench to accommodate new €12 million signing Max Kruse in an attacking role.

Unbeaten at home in 2015, the hosts found themselves under some good early pressure from their visitors with some slick, one-touch passing combined alongside swift counter-attacking with Frankfurt newcomer Luc Castaignos looking a threat.

Any early nerves for Wolfsburg were calmed though with the opening goal on 13 minutes. After a period of sustained ball possession, a precise cross from Kruse was skilfully headed in by Croatian international Ivan Perišić.

Three minutes later and ‘die Wölfe’ doubled their lead with Bas Dost getting on the scoresheet. An untidy ball into the six-yard box saw Makoto Hasebe’s legs just not long enough to prevent Dost firing home from close range.

Frankfurt weren’t about to lie down and grabbed a goal back within two minutes. Castaignos sent Haris Seferovic down the left and his precise cross found Stefan Reinartz in space and he headed home.

Twenty minutes of goal-filled football soon settled down for a good ten minutes before referee Christian Dingert had to decide whether Zambrano’s coming together with Dost deserved a penalty on 30 minutes. He decided it didn’t so die Adler were off the hook

Zambrano however did see yellow for chopping down De Bruyne before the break, but then the Belgian followed him into the referee’s book with an understandably aggressive reaction.

Armin Veh, beginning his second go-round in Frankfurt,  changed the formation at the interval by switching to a 4-3-3 formation in order to try to make up for the one-goal deficit. But it was Wolfsburg and De Bruyne who had the first chance of the second 45 minutes but the Belgian couldn’t convert after fine work from Guilavogui.

The second half couldn’t live up to the fantastic spell witnessed in the first, and as the game went out, Frankfurt became a little more desperate/ uncontrolled to get the equaliser.

Dieter Hecking’s vice-champions saw out the match to take all three points, but it still remains to be seen how many more times the Volkswagen Arena faithful will get to witness De Bruyne in a green shirt, even if his performance Sunday was so-so relative to his usual impact on proceedings. How Klaus Allofs must be praying for the transfer window to close with the Belgian still at the club.

1-0 Perisic (13), 2-0 Dost (17), 2-1 Reinartz (19)

Wolfsburg: Casteels, Vierinha, Naldo, Klose, Rodriguez, Guilavogui, Arnold (Träsch 78), De Bruyne (Hunt 75), Perisic, Kruse, Dost (Bendtner 86)

Frankfurt: Hradecky, Hasebe, Zambrano, Abraham, Oczipka, Russ (Gerezgiher 76), Reinartz, Aigner, Inui (Ignjovski 46), Seferovic, Castaignos (Waldschmidt 83)