All about the next game: Kiel at home

From an away vic­to­ry at the Ita­li­an record cham­pi­ons to a home game against the new­ly pro­mo­ted team. This may look easy on paper but is any­thing but. Yet it’s also an oppor­tu­ni­ty.

The vic­to­ry on Tues­day evening still lin­gers in my mind. At least in mine. Hop­eful­ly not in the minds of the play­ers, becau­se the men­tal approach requi­red to face a win­less pro­mo­ted team in a home game should not be unde­re­sti­ma­ted. Of cour­se, the atmo­sphe­re in the Neckar­sta­di­on will be just as lively as it was in the away sec­tion of the Juven­tus Sta­di­um. But Kiel can­not afford a care­less per­for­mance like Juven­tus did, not least becau­se their defen­si­ve qua­li­ty and espe­ci­al­ly their goal­kee­per are not com­pa­ra­ble to tho­se of the Turin team. Whe­re the Ita­li­an side reli­ed on its qua­li­ty, Kiel will undoub­ted­ly put a lot of fight­ing spi­rit on the line.

And yet I belie­ve that this won’t be enough if the team mana­ges to get as fired up for this match as they were for the Cham­pi­ons League high­light. The rota­ti­on announ­ced by Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß will cer­tain­ly help moti­va­te sub­sti­tu­te play­ers to fight for a start­ing spot, and at the same time, play­ers who play­ed in Turin will draw strength and con­fi­dence from that match. This brings us to the

Personnel situation

The big­gest news from Friday’s press con­fe­rence was that Ange­lo Stil­ler bro­ke his fin­ger and will play against Kiel with a splint. Chris Füh­rich is back in the squad, while Niko Nar­tey and Ameen Al-Dak­hil will play for the second team against Aue on Sun­day. Addi­tio­nal­ly, the long-term inju­red play­ers are, of cour­se, still out.

Possible Starting Lineup

Rou­ault may get a rest, and Cha­se, after seve­ral sub­sti­tu­ti­ons, might get a place in the start­ing lin­e­up. Up front, the­re is still the most poten­ti­al for rota­ti­on. Lewe­ling, due to his invol­vement in inter­na­tio­nal games, has log­ged a lot of minu­tes late­ly, so Füh­rich could bring speed off the bench towards the end. Tou­ré is likely to start, and Mil­lot may be spared a bit depen­ding on the cour­se of the game, espe­ci­al­ly with Tuesday’s match against Kai­sers­lau­tern in mind.

Statistics

This will be only the fifth time the two clubs face each other. In the last second divi­si­on sea­son, VfB noto­rious­ly lost both matches in exas­pe­ra­ting ways, with the only vic­to­ry against Kiel cele­bra­ted in the 2015 cup. Hol­stein Kiel is curr­ent­ly second from last with only two points, one of which was, impres­si­ve­ly, against Lever­ku­sen. They have also con­ce­ded the most goals in the league and, along­side VfL Bochum, are still win­less. Addi­tio­nal­ly, they have allo­wed the most shots on goal so far this sea­son, with 48, and their goal­kee­per, Timo Wei­ner, also ranks poor­ly in league com­pa­ri­sons, with a post-shot xG dif­fe­rence of near­ly ‑5. Four of their nine goals have been scored by Shuto Machi­no. Offen­si­ve­ly, they rely pri­ma­ri­ly on cros­ses into the penal­ty area, pla­cing them sixth in the league for cros­ses. When it comes to sprints and inten­se runs, Kiel is, as expec­ted, among the top teams.

Conclusion

As sta­ted abo­ve, and unfort­u­na­te­ly alre­a­dy men­tio­ned to other play­ers: VfB needs to bring both its qua­li­ty and the right mind­set to the pitch. If they do, this game and the upco­ming cup match against second-divi­si­on team Kai­sers­lau­tern could give them a real men­tal boost ahead of the two matches against last season’s Euro­pa League fina­lists Lever­ku­sen and Ber­ga­mo. On the other hand, they can hard­ly afford to drop points in this game becau­se, as descri­bed, it won’t get any easier in the coming weeks. I don’t expect a spec­ta­cle against Kiel, but focus and three points should be achie­va­ble.

Pic­tu­re: © Stuart Franklin/Getty Images