Hannover 96 got their first win in more than three months Friday evening with a 1-0 victory over Nürnberg. The there points are extremely valuable to a club that's drawn it's previous five matches.
Moa Abdellaoue volleyed a cross from Lars Stindl into the back of the net during the 18th minute to give the 96ers a much needed victory. Their last victory came on October 23, 2011 when they shockingly defeated Bayern Munich. That's a stretch of six draws and two losses and spans 96 days.
The match had started brightly for Hannover, and they started creating chances early thanks to Abdellaoue. The Norwegian international had the first chance of the match, but he saw his shot go just over the cross bar. Nürnberg goalkeeper Raphael Schäfer needed a very good save to keep out a shot a few minutes later from Sergio Pinto. The next time Schäfer went for the ball he was picking it out of his own net.
The remainder of the first half continued in similar fashion with most of the traffic heading directly toward the Nürnberg goal. Schäfer was called on once against just before the half to turn away a Jan Schlaudraff shot.
Nürnberg finally started to come into the match in the second half with the introduction of Tomas Pekhart to the side. They pushed for the equalizer as the clock ticked toward 90:00, but Ron-Robert Zieler was up to every challenge in the Hannover net.
The victory is a massive result for Mirko Slomka's side. Hannover now solidifies their 7th position in table before the remaining matches this weekend.
The loss for Nürnberg is another poor result to add to the season's worth of poor results they have accumulated already. They currently sit in twelfth place, but if a few results go against them this weekend they could drop to fifteenth.
