All about the next game: Bratislava away in the Champions League

After a suc­cessful start to the year in the Bun­des­li­ga, VfB aims to car­ry this momen­tum into the cri­ti­cal pha­se of the Cham­pi­ons League.

The VfB machi­ne is up and run­ning. Undav and Lewe­ling are back, Demi­ro­vic is fin­ding the net again, Al-Dak­hil is final­ly available, and the defen­se is more sta­ble. If Zag­adou even­tual­ly gets fit, the woes of the first half of the sea­son will be a thing of the past. VfB Stutt­gart is now back in a Cham­pi­ons League spot after thras­hing their smal­ler neigh­bor Frei­burg and wat­ching the RB fran­chise squan­der a 3–0 lead. I don’t want to jinx it, but it’s enti­re­ly pos­si­ble we’ll see Cham­pi­ons League foot­ball in Stutt­gart again next year. Of cour­se, at this point, it’s just wishful thin­king and unrea­li­stic, but we thought the same thing last year. Natu­ral­ly, ever­y­thing could fall apart, and the game against Slo­van Bra­tis­la­va might turn out to be the last trip after all the strug­gles.

To pre­vent this sce­na­rio, we abso­lut­e­ly have to win today. Against Špor­to­vý klub Slo­van Bra­tis­la­va, who are still wit­hout a point, three points are a must. Only this way can we keep our chan­ces of advan­cing ali­ve. After all, next week on the final match­day of the Cham­pi­ons League group stage, no less than Paris Saint-Ger­main awaits us. I can ima­gi­ne many are unde­re­sti­mat­ing the record cham­pi­ons of the still rela­tively young Slo­va­kia. Despi­te having some stars, the Eas­tern Euro­pean nati­on isn’t exact­ly seen as a foot­bal­ling power­house, and Slo­van hasn’t exact­ly cover­ed its­elf in glo­ry in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on in the past. But I want to rai­se a cau­tio­na­ry fin­ger. We said the same thing about Red Star Bel­gra­de. We also went into that match as hea­vy favo­ri­tes and took a pret­ty hard fall. I hope the team has lear­ned from that deba­cle and won’t be over­whel­med this time. Off the pitch, there’s also a risk of a “Bel­gra­de 2.0.” The Slo­van ultras aren’t exact­ly known for their hos­pi­ta­li­ty. During VfB Stuttgart’s last visit to the Slo­vak capi­tal, the­re were riots in the stands when Slo­van fans attempt­ed to attack the away sec­tion. Both on and off the pitch, cau­ti­on is advi­sed.

Squad Situation

To quo­te Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß: “Not­hing has chan­ged; no new inju­ries have been added.”

Possible Starting Lineup

The­re are exact­ly two uncer­tain­ties regar­ding the start­ing lin­e­up:

  1. Will Lewe­ling play? If yes, will he play on the left or the right? I can ima­gi­ne both sce­na­ri­os. Howe­ver, I would lea­ve him on the bench due to load manage­ment.
  2. Who will play in cen­tral defen­se? I expect Cha­b­o­t/Al-Dak­hil, though Rou­ault is also a rea­li­stic opti­on.

Statistics

The­re has alre­a­dy been one encoun­ter with Slo­van Bra­tis­la­va. In the 2010/11 sea­son, we won 1–0 away at the Pasi­en­ky during the Euro­pa League qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on and drew 2–2 at home. The top scorer is right-win­ger Tigran Bar­seg­hyan with 17 goals and 6 assists, fol­lo­wed by stri­ker David Strelec (15 goals, 6 assists). For Slo­van Bra­tis­la­va, this is their first Cham­pi­ons League sea­son in which they didn’t fail to qua­li­fy. Howe­ver, they haven’t ear­ned a sin­gle point so far and are alre­a­dy eli­mi­na­ted. In their dome­stic league, on the other hand, they’re quite domi­nant. They ente­red the new sea­son as defen­ding cham­pi­ons and curr­ent­ly lead the Niké Liga by four points. With 14 titles, they are Slovakia’s record cham­pi­ons. In 1994, they were the first Slo­vak cham­pi­ons after the sepa­ra­ti­on from the Czech Repu­blic and have won the title six times in a row recent­ly.

Conclusion

We tra­vel to Bra­tis­la­va as favo­ri­tes. Howe­ver, the match in Bel­gra­de should ser­ve as a war­ning not to unde­re­sti­ma­te the oppo­nent. With our new­found con­fi­dence, we should be able to hand­le this. I expect a nar­row 1–0 vic­to­ry and hope ever­yo­ne stays inju­ry-free.

Pic­tu­re: © Alex Grimm/Bongarts/Getty Images

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