All about the next opponent: interview with Leipzig expert Ulli Kroemer

With the home match against Leip­zig, VfB Stutt­gart con­cludes the first half of the sea­son. Free­lan­ce jour­na­list and Leip­zig expert Ulli Kroe­mer explains the cur­rent sta­te of today’s oppo­nent.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Ulli, and thank you for taking the time to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons again. Last sea­son, Leip­zig qua­li­fied for the Cham­pi­ons League by finis­hing fourth, but their push for the cham­pi­on­ship fell short. At the end of this first half of the sea­son, they’re once again in fourth place, nine points behind Bay­ern. Do you think their pro­s­pects have impro­ved com­pared to last sea­son?

Ulli: Not at first, becau­se Dani Olmo, the team’s mas­ter­mind, left the club and wasn’t ade­qua­te­ly repla­ced. Anto­nio Nusa has immense poten­ti­al, but he’s only 19, not an expe­ri­en­ced inter­na­tio­nal play­er and Euro­pean cham­pi­on who deve­lo­ped into a world-class play­er in Leip­zig over four and a half years. Leip­zig hasn’t just sta­gna­ted in terms of game­play; the team has regres­sed and is over­ly reli­ant on the indi­vi­du­al bril­li­ance of Xavi Simons. When play­ers like him are unavailable, the team lacks a solid tac­ti­cal foun­da­ti­on. BUT: I just retur­ned from Salz­burg, whe­re Jür­gen Klopp was intro­du­ced as the new chief advi­sor of the Red Bull foot­ball empire. I belie­ve that, in the medi­um term, Klopp could make a dif­fe­rence and pro­vi­de cru­cial input for coa­ching, stra­tegy, and squad plan­ning.

Last year, Leip­zig unex­pec­ted­ly lost 5–2 in Stutt­gart. This sea­son has also seen sur­pri­sing defeats, like 1–5 against Wolfs­burg or 3–4 in Hof­fen­heim. Addi­tio­nal­ly, they are still point­less in the Cham­pi­ons League and have been eli­mi­na­ted. What do you think is caus­ing this, and how secu­re is Mar­co Rose’s posi­ti­on?

In dis­as­trous los­ses like tho­se in Stutt­gart and against Wolfs­burg, the team com­ple­te­ly col­lap­sed during dif­fi­cult pha­ses. The root cau­se is the style of play. Rose’s foot­ball requi­res 100% inten­si­ty in every pha­se of the game. When the team can’t main­tain that—due to num­e­rous inju­ries or stret­ches of con­se­cu­ti­ve mid­week fixtures—they lack the matu­ri­ty and com­po­sure of a top team to hand­le games calm­ly. When inten­si­ty in duels, pres­sing, and coun­ter-pres­sing is miss­ing, so are ball reco­veries and tran­si­ti­on actions. In some pha­ses, Leip­zig has been quick­ly expo­sed becau­se of this.

In the win against Bre­men last weekend, Xavi Simons sho­ne, having missed the last encoun­ter due to inju­ry. Mean­while, Ben­ja­min Ses­ko and Lois Open­da have scored seven and six goals respec­tively, with Open­da also pro­vi­ding nine assists. Which of the three should Stutt­gart fear most on Wed­nes­day night?

Xavi was sus­pen­ded in last season’s match in Stutt­gart. After Xavi’s inju­ry lay­off from Octo­ber until the restart this year and the goal drought of the striking duo in Novem­ber, the trio is now ful­ly fit and extre­me­ly dan­ge­rous. Ses­ko, in par­ti­cu­lar, is in excel­lent form and brim­ming with con­fi­dence. Xavi, after his ank­le inju­ry, needs to regain con­sis­ten­cy but has announ­ced that he’s now a com­ple­te­ly new, more deter­mi­ned play­er with a dif­fe­rent men­ta­li­ty.

Whe­re do you curr­ent­ly see Leipzig’s strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

With so many attack­ing play­ers in the lin­e­up, RB is vul­nerable defen­si­ve­ly when the oppo­nent tran­si­ti­ons quick­ly. If play is fast and direct—and Stutt­gart can do this—Leipzig strug­gles to regain con­trol as effec­tively as befo­re. This is part­ly due to the hol­ding mid­field duo of Vermeeren/Kampl/Haidara/Seiwald, which, wit­hout the inju­red Schla­ger, doesn’t ope­ra­te at top level and allows too many balls into dan­ge­rous are­as. Ano­ther weak­ne­ss is the lack of cros­ses; despi­te having a wea­pon like Ses­ko in the cen­ter, RB’s crossing stats are well below the league avera­ge. A key strength is their own tran­si­ti­ons after win­ning the ball; when Xavi & Co. have pos­ses­si­on and the team pushes for­ward, Rose’s high-ener­gy foot­ball is in full flow. Addi­tio­nal­ly, goal­kee­per Gulacsi is in gre­at form.

Ben­ja­min Hen­richs suf­fe­r­ed a seve­re Achil­les ten­don inju­ry short­ly befo­re Christ­mas and will be out for the rest of the sea­son. Against Bre­men, Rose swit­ched to a back four with Lukas Klos­ter­mann at right-back. How signi­fi­cant is Hen­richs’ absence?

Hen­richs wasn’t in form for the enti­re first half of the sea­son, so the loss is mana­geable. RB has brought in good cover with Rid­le Baku, and Geer­trui­da, who is fit again after a cold, can play the posi­ti­on bet­ter than Klos­ter­mann. Hen­richs, who has been over­play­ed, should reco­ver ful­ly and come back strong in 2025/26.

Final­ly, your pre­dic­tion for the lin­e­up and result?

Gulacsi – Geer­trui­da, Klos­ter­mann, Orban, Raum – Ver­mee­ren, Hai­dara – Nusa, Baum­gart­ner (Xavi Simons) – Ses­ko, Open­da

Note: this inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Cover Image: © Chris­ti­an Kas­par-Bart­ke/­Get­ty Images