Darmstadt 98 and Holstein Kiel played out a 2:2 draw in the opening match of the 2. Bundesliga regular season on Saturday evening. The hosts took the lead through Aleksandar Vukotic before Guillermo Balzi and Philipp Harres had already given Kiel control, only for Ho-Jae Lee to swing things back. By then the visitors had been ahead for nearly an hour.
Balzi opened the scoring in the eighth minute, catching the defence off guard. Kiel added a second just before the break when Harres found space in the box to slot home. Darmstadt looked uncomfortable, chasing the game and running out of legs by the time the half ended.
The hosts turned it around after the break. Lee Ho-Jae pulled one back in the 76th minute and Vukotic equalised with two minutes remaining, working the channels to get on the end of a cross. And here's the thing — Kiel had dominated the early exchanges but couldn't hold on when it mattered.
Five yellow cards were shown as tensions rose, including incidents involving Nekic, Furukawa, and Sekine. Darmstadt brought on Lakenmacher in the 60th minute to try and find a winner, while Kiel responded with Kapralik and Davidsen to see the game out.
Kiel registered 6 shots on target compared to 3 for the hosts, yet both sides held 50% possession. The visitors created 3 big chances and had an expected goals tally of 1.4, while Darmstadt managed 0.74 with no big chances created. Shots accuracy sat at 55% for Kiel against 21% for the hosts.
The result leaves Kiel third in the table with 3 points from four games, while Darmstadt remain 18th on just 1 point. Both sides had failed to win any of their previous fixtures, so this draw at least ended winless runs for both clubs.