Hansa Rostock and Wien played out a 1:1 draw in the fourth round of the 3. Liga at the Ostseestadion on Saturday. Lukas Wallner opened the scoring before Simon Stehle's late reply levelled matters. The result keeps Hansa in third place with eight points from four games, while Wien remain bottom of the table on two points.
Wallner struck in the fifty-third minute to settle the visitors' nerves. The goal came after a period of pressure that Hansa felt the pressure to break down. Stehle then ended a barren spell in the eighty-third minute, catching the home defence off guard. By then the match had settled into a rhythm neither side could quite control.
There were plenty of cards on display, with six yellow cards shown in total. Florian Bohnert and Leon Dajaku went off early, while Florian-Horst Carstens and Fabian Greilinger picked up bookings in the final quarter. Stehle and Peter Kiedl were the latest offenders as the game wound down.
Substitutions came thick and fast after the hour mark. Jonas Dirkner led the way for Hansa in the sixty-second minute, followed by three changes for Wien at the sixty-fourth minute. Roberto Massimo came on for the hosts before a pair of changes in the seventy-fourth minute. The final round of replacements arrived in the eighty-seventh minute.
The statistics told a story of two evenly matched sides. Both teams held fifty per cent possession and were equally dangerous from distance, with Hansa registering nine shots on target against Wien's eight. The hosts had twelve corners to the visitors' three, but neither side could convert their dominance into a second goal.
For Hansa, the point extends their unbeaten run and keeps pressure on the teams above. Wien have lost two of their opening four games and are running out of games to turn things around. The gap between them and safety is already looking substantial.