Gambled Away

In Frei­burg, Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß strug­g­led with per­son­nel issues—and drew the wrong con­clu­si­ons from them. But that does­n’t ful­ly explain the loss of con­trol in the midd­le of the first half. After all, the­re was litt­le tru­ly new for the team in this match.

Some­ti­mes, suc­cess can lead to a ten­den­cy to roman­ti­ci­ze the past. I don’t mean the qua­li­ty of the VfB team, which I still don’t doubt even after the ope­ning defeat in Frei­burg. No, it’s more about the fact that while the team is capa­ble of play­ing breath­ta­king foot­ball, it also occa­sio­nal­ly allows a high­ly moti­va­ted and well-orga­ni­zed oppo­nent to take the upper hand. This has hap­pen­ed in Hei­den­heim, in Bochum, and now in Frei­burg. The Breis­gau­er, under Juli­an Schus­ter, play in a way that’s, unsur­pri­sin­gly, quite simi­lar to how they did under Chris­ti­an Streich: good set-pie­ces, clean build-up play, ruthl­ess effi­ci­en­cy in attack, and high inten­si­ty. The goals did­n’t come from the impres­si­ve Juni­or Ada­mu, who sho­ne during pre-sea­son, but from ever­greens like Lukas Küb­ler and Rit­su Doan, assis­ted by Chris­ti­an Gün­ter and Vin­cen­zo Grifo. Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß and his team knew exact­ly what to expect but could only hand­le it in the ear­ly stages when Erme­din Demi­ro­vić mark­ed his first Bun­des­li­ga chan­ce for VfB with a spec­ta­cu­lar goal. After Juli­an Schus­ter gathe­red his play­ers during the first drink break, the team com­ple­te­ly lost con­trol of the game, remi­nis­cent of ano­ther poor per­for­mance from last sea­son, name­ly the defeat in Leip­zig.

Back then, too, VfB took the lead, only to fall apart after­ward. Alt­hough SCF didn’t score five goals against their guests, it could have easi­ly hap­pen­ed. A week after a strong per­for­mance in Lever­ku­sen, VfB lacked a lot— the right atti­tu­de towards the game, asser­ti­ve­ness in the opponent’s penal­ty area, and concentration—but abo­ve all, they lacked struc­tu­re. Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß respon­ded to the absen­ces of Leo­ni­das Ster­giou, Antho­ny Rou­ault, Josha Vagno­man, and Daxo Zag­adou by pul­ling Ange­lo Stil­ler back into defen­se and moving Enzo Mil­lot to the hol­ding mid­fiel­der posi­ti­on. Both were sor­ely missed in their usu­al posi­ti­ons and also made gla­ring errors: Mil­lot gave Patrick Oster­ha­ge far too much space in mid­field befo­re the equa­li­zer, allo­wing the attack through Ada­mu to begin; Stil­ler repea­ted­ly fai­led to clear cros­ses from the sides, for exam­p­le, befo­re the 2–1 goal, and made a cru­cial pas­sing error in his own penal­ty area befo­re the cor­ner that led to the 3–1. Bes­i­des the­se indi­vi­du­al errors, Mil­lot was miss­ing from an other­wi­se sho­ckin­gly harm­less offen­se, while Ata­kan Kara­zor often loo­ked lost wit­hout his usu­al part­ner. On the other hand, loo­king at the per­for­mance of debutant Anrie Cha­se against a still-dan­ge­rous but less inten­se Frei­burg team, one can’t help but con­sider him a bet­ter solu­ti­on for the inju­ry cri­sis.

No Structure, No Control

Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß sure­ly had more reasons to pull Stil­ler back than just the excel­lent per­for­mance he show­ed in this posi­ti­on against Dort­mund. The com­pa­ri­son to that game, howe­ver, reve­als why it work­ed then but not now. When Stil­ler repla­ced Anton in April, the team was well-coor­di­na­ted and riding a wave of suc­cess. Curr­ent­ly, the team is still try­ing to find its foo­ting, espe­ci­al­ly defen­si­ve­ly. With Cha­b­ot and Krät­zig, two new­co­mers were in the back four, Pas­cal Sten­zel isn’t exact­ly a regu­lar, and the tran­si­ti­ons to mid­field weren’t clean eit­her. An estab­lished and well-prac­ti­ced dou­ble-six in front of a back four with new­co­mers and a young Bun­des­li­ga debutant would, in my opi­ni­on, have pro­vi­ded much more sta­bi­li­ty and a more balan­ced approach, inclu­ding offen­si­ve­ly. Ins­tead, Deniz Undav was com­ple­te­ly iso­la­ted, redu­ced to two long shots, while Jamie Lewe­ling was hard­ly seen.

In addi­ti­on to indi­vi­du­al and struc­tu­ral errors, it was also striking how quick­ly VfB lost con­trol of the game. After Frei­burg ended the first drink break with a goal kick from Flo­ri­an Mül­ler, VfB did­n’t get hold of the ball until the equa­li­zer. As in the last ten minu­tes in Lever­ku­sen, VfB could­n’t get a foot­hold after­ward and fai­led to mount any signi­fi­cant resis­tance to Freiburg’s stor­ming attacks. In such situa­tions, you tend to con­ce­de goals like the 2–1, whe­re pro­ba­b­ly only Alex Nübel knows why he didn’t use his pri­vi­le­ge of being able to hand­le the ball with his hands. The defeat was not only ine­vi­ta­ble but also tho­rough­ly deser­ved. Once again, it was evi­dent that any­thing less than full effort is not enough. Per­haps the most tel­ling moment was just befo­re halft­i­me when Undav lost the ball in the cen­ter cir­cle during a coun­ter­at­tack by Oster­ha­ge.

A Reaction Will Come

What reads like a gene­ral cri­ti­cism is also a gene­ral cri­ti­cism, becau­se the game was real­ly bad. At the same time, it’s not a reason to des­pair after the lost Super­cup and the bot­ched ope­ner. As men­tio­ned ear­lier, VfB also had such games last sea­son, and the team was able to respond. Moreo­ver, the situa­ti­on in cen­tral defen­se is expec­ted to ease with ano­ther trans­fer and the even­tu­al return of Ster­giou, Rou­ault, Zag­adou, and Vagno­man. The cri­ti­cism that, ins­tead of sig­ning, for exam­p­le, El Bil­al Tou­ré (more back­ground on him soon), a cen­tral defen­der should have been the prio­ri­ty, is some­thing I can’t under­stand. Appar­ent­ly, it was easier to find a sui­ta­ble back­up for the stri­ker posi­ti­on than a poten­ti­al star­ter in cen­tral defen­se. The dead­line is next weekend, not the first match­day. And while it cer­tain­ly would have made sen­se to start Anrie Cha­se, I see no reason to rush into the trans­fer mar­ket becau­se of one game.

Perhaps—although I could do wit­hout it—this defeat is yet ano­ther wake-up call that the team has nee­ded in the past to refo­cus. The exci­te­ment in recent weeks has been high and should remain so—after all, the Cham­pi­ons League draw is on Thurs­day! The team now needs to shar­pen its focus and, for­t­u­na­te­ly, can pro­ve as ear­ly as Tues­day in Müns­ter what their only goals­corer of the sea­son so far said after the game: “We’re still an awe­so­me team.”

For some­thing com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent: Rest in peace, Chris­toph Daum

Pic­tu­re: © THOMAS KIENZLE/AFP via Get­ty Images

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