All about the next game: Augsburg away

After the vic­to­ry against Bay­ern, the tough part of the remai­ning sche­du­le is more or less suc­cessful­ly com­ple­ted. With FC Augs­burg, a theo­re­ti­cal­ly mana­geable but by no means easy oppo­nent is coming up.

This ins­a­ne sea­son is slow­ly coming to an end, and alt­hough one can be sad that the­re are only two games left in this record-brea­king sea­son, on one hand, we can be glad that we never real­ly got into rele­ga­ti­on dan­ger, and on the other hand, we can look for­ward to the first inter­na­tio­nal games in who knows how many years. But befo­re we all men­tal­ly start pack­ing our bags and casual­ly ack­now­ledge the last two games, I would like to remind ever­yo­ne that the­re is still some­thing at sta­ke. Thanks to our vic­to­ry against FC Bay­ern, we are back two points behind the record cham­pi­ons and could sur­pass them with a slip-up. It won’t earn us a tro­phy in the end, but it would be balm for the bat­te­red VfB soul to over­ta­ke the for­mer rival (Yes, dear child­ren, VfB ver­sus Bay­ern used to be con­side­red a rival­ry. Not for not­hing do they always talk about a Süd­gip­fel!) But first, we have to beat Augs­burg, and even though the result of the first leg plus Augsburg’s 1–5 thras­hing in Dort­mund might make us think “pff, we’ll easi­ly beat them!”, cau­ti­on is advi­sed. Becau­se the Fug­ger­städ­ter have evol­ved from rele­ga­ti­on can­di­da­tes to, in my opi­ni­on, genui­ne Euro­pean cup con­ten­ders. The first half of the sea­son under Jess Thorup was medio­cre, but after the win­ter break, they kicked into high gear. In the second half of the sea­son, they are in an excel­lent 5th place on the table. Even though Augs­burg seems to be run­ning out of steam during the second half of the sea­son, they are defi­ni­te­ly a dif­fe­rent team than in the first leg. Nevert­hel­ess, VfB goes into this duel as the favo­ri­te, also becau­se Augs­burg has clear weak­ne­s­ses. On the one hand, they are sus­cep­ti­ble to coun­ter­at­tacks, and on the other hand, Kou­bek is not exact­ly the most con­fi­dent goal­kee­per. Ano­ther fac­tor in our favor is the

Personnel

Except for the long-term inju­red play­ers, ever­yo­ne is actual­ly fit. Espe­ci­al­ly Niko­las Nar­tey, who is final­ly back in team trai­ning. If I had one wish, it would defi­ni­te­ly be for a short appearance in the last two games for the still young Dane.

Possible Starting Lineup

The Bay­ern con­que­r­ors are back in action with one excep­ti­on. For Rou­ault, who was yel­low-card­ed against Bay­ern, Mit­tel­städt returns. Ster­giou has defi­ni­te­ly ear­ned his start­ing spot.

Statistics

In 21 Bun­des­li­ga matches, VfB nar­row­ly leads with 10 wins to 9 los­ses. Three of the 10 wins were achie­ved by the Swa­bi­ans in the WWK Are­na. Augs­burg reli­es hea­vi­ly on offen­si­ve cros­ses. This is very sen­si­ble, as they can also win the fourth-most aeri­al duels. They have less pos­ses­si­on on avera­ge than the oppo­nent, and their suc­cess rate in duels is not often high. Other­wi­se, Augs­burg does­n’t stand out in any cate­go­ry, they are just a mid-table Bun­des­li­ga team. VfB must be espe­ci­al­ly cau­tious of Demi­ro­vic. The Bos­ni­an, with 15 goals, is the most dan­ge­rous scorer for the Fug­ger­städ­ter and also ranks 5th in the Bun­des­li­ga top sco­rers list.

Conclusion

Augs­burg should not be unde­re­sti­ma­ted, but com­pared to the last two tasks, it is mana­geable. For VfB, there’s still some­thing to play for, even though the Cham­pi­ons League spot has been secu­red. If we play focu­sed and give it our all from the begin­ning, we have not­hing to fear. And even if we lose, it’s not the end of the world, becau­se after all the crap, we’­re final­ly going on a jour­ney. I can hard­ly wait.

Pic­tu­re: © Adam Pretty/Getty Images