In the Flow

VfB Stutt­gart thra­s­hed SC Frei­burg 4–0 in the Neckar­sta­di­on to con­clude the busy three-game-week, rota­ting their squad com­for­ta­b­ly ahead of an important Cham­pi­ons League match on Tues­day. What a way to start the new year!

Chris­ti­an Gün­ter thought he was being cle­ver. As Freiburg’s cap­tain, he won the coin toss and deci­ded that VfB would play toward the Cannstat­ter Kur­ve in the first half, lea­ving Frei­burg to face it in the second. Per­haps he still remem­be­red how Jacob Bru­un Lar­sen and Nick Wol­te­ma­de had elec­tri­fied the home end during the second half on Wed­nes­day evening and hoped to avo­id a simi­lar sce­na­rio on Satur­day after­noon. Howe­ver, the play­ers with the Red Stri­pe were unfa­zed, net­ting four goals against our for­mer goal­kee­per Flo Mül­ler in the first half—one of which was con­tro­ver­si­al­ly dis­al­lo­wed.

The fact that VfB over­ca­me even a lost coin toss and domi­na­ted Frei­burg for 90 minu­tes, a team they lost to in the first half of the sea­son, brings back memo­ries of last sea­son. This time, howe­ver, it was­n’t just one stri­ker lea­ding the char­ge for the rout. Ins­tead, Erme­din Demi­ro­vić, Nick Wol­te­ma­de, and Deniz Undav all found the back of the net. Addi­tio­nal­ly, VfB sud­den­ly capi­ta­li­zed on set-pie­ces, with Antho­ny Rou­ault posi­tio­ning his head per­fect­ly to score his first Bun­des­li­ga goal. After a chal­len­ging start to the year and a strong per­for­mance against Leip­zig, the team seems ful­ly “in the flow” by the end of this first inten­se week of matches.

Rotation to Success

And this comes despi­te ano­ther cru­cial match loo­ming on Tues­day, promp­ting Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß to rota­te his squad for load manage­ment. This time, Jeff Cha­b­ot sat out, while Ramon Hendriks—who isn’t regis­tered for inter­na­tio­nal play—was once again pre­fer­red over Maxi Mit­tel­städt. It made no dif­fe­rence, as Ameen Al-Dak­hil in just his second start and Antho­ny Rou­ault limi­t­ed Frei­burg to only a handful of attempts, none of which requi­red Alex Nübel to make a save. It mark­ed his second clean sheet in a week. Nick Wol­te­ma­de, also not regis­tered for the Cham­pi­ons League, play­ed again and scored, while Demi­ro­vić and Undav shared duties to con­ser­ve ener­gy for Bra­tis­la­va.

VfB was com­ple­te­ly domi­nant over SC Frei­burg, bar­ring a few moments, and it incre­asing­ly evo­kes not just last sea­son but also the gol­den 2000s. Alt­hough this resur­gence has only been ongo­ing for about a year and a half, it’s hard to ima­gi­ne VfB stop­ping their upward tra­jec­to­ry now, even with their rise to a Cham­pi­ons League spot. They likely won’t chall­enge for the run­ner-up posi­ti­on again, but the team now seems men­tal­ly and phy­si­cal­ly capa­ble of rota­ting past direct rivals for Euro­pean spots wit­hout brea­king a sweat.

Braking Without Stalling

Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß would do well to app­ly the bra­kes on the gro­wing eupho­ria wit­hout dis­rupt­ing the team’s flow. The advan­ta­ge of back-to-back fix­tures is that the team doesn’t have time to rest on its lau­rels but can car­ry the momen­tum of suc­cess into the next match. Simul­ta­neous­ly, the squad now offers more opti­ons off the bench com­pared to the first half of the sea­son, even in the Cham­pi­ons League. Let’s hope this win­ning streak, just like last sea­son, con­ti­nues for a long time.

Pic­tu­re: © Chris­ti­an Kas­par-Bart­ke/­Get­ty Images

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