All about the next game: Bremen away

After the thras­hing in Bel­gra­de, VfB doesn’t have much time to reco­ver. Today, Wer­der Bre­men pres­ents the next tough chall­enge – and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for redemp­ti­on.

I think many VfB fans are still quite dis­ap­poin­ted, angry, or even sho­cked by VfB Stuttgart’s per­for­mance against Red Star Bel­gra­de. The­re might even be a fan or two ques­tio­ning not just VfB Stuttgart’s com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness in the Cham­pi­ons League but also in the Bun­des­li­ga. Befo­re the sea­son, it felt like ever­yo­ne was worried about the tri­ple bur­den, or even a qua­dru­ple bur­den if you count inter­na­tio­nal matches. Howe­ver, I think con­cerns that this could cost us our place in the Bun­des­li­ga are exag­ge­ra­ted. First, the last time we were rele­ga­ted, it was after finis­hing seventh in a sea­son whe­re only Frankfurt’s cup win denied us a spot in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on. We were rele­ga­ted regard­less, even wit­hout the tri­ple bur­den. Second­ly, what we’ve seen so far doesn’t real­ly qua­li­fy as a tri­ple bur­den – in cup matches (and this won’t chan­ge against Jahn Regens­burg), it’s most­ly been second-string play­ers, while the regu­lars have been res­ted. Third­ly, by the final third of the sea­son, we will likely have been eli­mi­na­ted from the Cham­pi­ons League or the cup, so there’s no need to worry. What should con­cern us, howe­ver, is the cur­rent inju­ry cri­sis. It’s not just inju­ries now but also a minor flu out­break. Sure, this was some­what fore­seeable, but for four offen­si­ve play­ers to get inju­red at once? Anyo­ne who pre­dic­ted that would win my “Pes­si­mism Cup” for excep­tio­nal gloom. Of cour­se, as in the Bochum game, this must be seen as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for second-string play­ers. Rie­der and Diehl took advan­ta­ge of this, with the lat­ter even scoring his first Bun­des­li­ga goal (and, natu­ral­ly, he’s out against Bre­men). Despi­te the inju­ry cri­sis, we can field a fair­ly com­pe­ti­ti­ve team in Bre­men that doesn’t need to hide from Wer­der.

The game against Bre­men could inde­ed be a lit­mus test and might be psy­cho­lo­gi­cal­ly cru­cial. The Bun­des­li­ga mid­ta­ble is incre­di­bly tight. Just to illus­tra­te: we’re curr­ent­ly in 9th place, while Bre­men is in 12th. If we win, we could poten­ti­al­ly climb to 5th and be just one point shy of a Cham­pi­ons League spot. A loss, howe­ver, would drop us to 12th, lea­ving us just five points abo­ve 16th place. Com­bi­ned with the loss in Bel­gra­de, this could give some jour­na­lists ammu­ni­ti­on for a PANIC! artic­le. Bre­men, in foot­bal­ling terms, is a mid­ta­ble team: too good to be rele­ga­ted, too weak to chall­enge at the top. This isn’t meant as cri­ti­cism; after all, Bre­men has been rele­ga­ted and pro­mo­ted again in recent years. To come back and sta­bi­li­ze in mid­ta­ble deser­ves the utmost respect. A defeat wouldn’t be cata­stro­phic, even in the worst-case sce­na­rio descri­bed abo­ve. Still, a win would be important for team mora­le and for redemp­ti­on.

Personnel

Not much has chan­ged sin­ce the Bel­gra­de match. Al-Dak­hil is still ill and may have infec­ted Jus­tin Diehl, who is also unavailable for the Bre­men game. Mil­lot needs to stay disci­pli­ned in Bre­men, as our sil­ver meda­list now has four yel­low cards.

Possible Lineup

This is admit­ted­ly more wishful thin­king than a pre­dic­tion. I just hope the expe­ri­ment with Vagno­man as an attack­ing right win­ger is over, and Mil­lot is allo­wed to play as an advan­ced play­maker on the flank. I could also ima­gi­ne him as a shadow stri­ker behind Demi­ro­vić, which would mean Wol­te­ma­de start­ing on the bench and Rie­der taking the right flank.

Statistics

Ahead of the 111th Bun­des­li­ga encoun­ter bet­ween the­se teams, the record is fair­ly balan­ced. VfB could secu­re its 40th win, while Bre­men has won 37 times, with 34 draws. His­to­ri­cal­ly, VfB has strug­g­led away, win­ning only 13 times at the Weser-Sta­di­on. In the last 10 visits, we’ve only won once (2020); other­wi­se, Bre­men has been domi­nant. Per­haps most unfor­gettable is the 6–2 defeat in 2016, which all but sea­led VfB’s second rele­ga­ti­on. Even last year, during a win­ning streak, we lost 2–1 in Bre­men. Ole Wer­ner empha­si­zes pos­ses­si­on-based foot­ball. While their pos­ses­si­on and pas­sing stats aren’t as strong as VfB’s, they’re still abo­ve avera­ge. Like VfB, they’re also among the less hard-run­ning teams.

Conclusion

The game against Bre­men is psy­cho­lo­gi­cal­ly important – cri­ti­cal for pro­ces­sing the defeat in Bel­gra­de and for poten­ti­al­ly clim­bing to a hig­her league posi­ti­on. Foot­ball-wise, it will be tough. Bre­men hasn’t been a hap­py hun­ting ground for VfB, and the num­e­rous absen­ces could hurt us. I think we’re in for an exci­ting 2–2 draw.

Cover Image: © Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

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