All about the next game: Wolfsburg away

In Wolfs­burg, it is important for VfB to car­ry over the eupho­ria from the home win against Dort­mund while stay­ing focu­sed on the next task.

After a some­what bum­py start to the sea­son, things seem to be going as well for VfB as they did last sea­son: a hard-fought vic­to­ry in Glad­bach, a good per­for­mance in Madrid, and a tri­um­phant home win over Dort­mund. Despi­te all the opti­mism, this was­n’t some­thing anyo­ne could have tru­ly coun­ted on. At the same time, the team needs to con­ti­nuous­ly refo­cus this sea­son as well. The posi­ti­ve run still seems too short for the team to afford taking a break, so by all reasonable mea­su­res, there’s not­hing stop­ping us from get­ting kno­cked down in Wolfs­burg. At the same time, the hosts aren’t per­forming as poor­ly as their record sug­gests, having lost only nar­row­ly to Munich and Lever­ku­sen. And, of cour­se, play­ing away in Wolfs­burg is always tri­cky becau­se some Yan­nick Ger­hardt or Maxi Arnold will ine­vi­ta­b­ly score a scrap­py goal and kick­start the Rama Lama Ding Dong. But if we keep scoring ear­ly like we have in recent games, I’m opti­mi­stic about the next match. Bes­i­des, the pace is so high at the moment — at least 18 more games are sche­du­led until Christ­mas — that there’s hard­ly any time to eit­her cele­bra­te or lament the last result. The new rhythm could tire the team over the next few weeks — or, as I find more likely, get them into a flow.

Let’s talk about the

Personnel situation

And the bit­te­rest news right up front: Daxo Zag­adou has suf­fe­r­ed ano­ther liga­ment inju­ry in his knee and is out again short­ly after his come­back. Leo Ster­giou and Jus­tin Diehl are still reco­ve­ring from their inju­ries. Niko Nar­tey and Ameen Al-Dak­hil are available again, though the lat­ter is side­lined with a cold.

So what should we do with a

Possible Starting Lineup?

Against a Wolfs­burg side strong in pres­sing, I would go with the tried-and-tes­ted back four, but con­side­ring fit­ness manage­ment, I’d bring in Füh­rich and (initi­al­ly) put Demi­ro­vić on the bench.

Statistics

VfB won both matches against Wolfs­burg last sea­son — some­thing that hasn’t hap­pen­ed sin­ce 2005/2006. In head-to-head com­pa­ri­sons, VfB slight­ly leads. Wolfs­burg stands out in the stats for having the second-most duels won, but also for recei­ving the most yel­low cards. Wolfs­burg allows the third-most shots on their goal, but their goal­kee­per Kamil Grab­a­ra has con­ce­ded 1.8 fewer goals than expec­ted based on post-shot expec­ted goals, saving his team quite a bit. Offen­si­ve­ly, only one out of every four shots they take is on tar­get, but almost every second one of tho­se goes in. Wolfs­burg has the least pos­ses­si­on in the league, so VfB can expect to have the ball a lot, but will also have to be pre­pared for inten­se pres­sing. Defen­ders Ced­ric Zesi­ger and Kili­an Fischer rank high­ly in suc­cessful tack­les.

Conclusion

It’s going to be a tough game in Wolfs­burg, a chan­ge of pace after the last two big games at the Ber­nabéu and the sold-out Neckar­sta­di­on. Simi­lar to Frei­burg, the team needs to be careful not to get caught off guard or to beco­me com­pla­cent after the win against Dort­mund. I may be repea­ting mys­elf and I’ve been wrong on this befo­re, but right now, I don’t expect any drop in inten­si­ty from VfB.

Pic­tu­re: © Selim Sudheimer/Getty Images