Many Chances for the Chance

In Bra­tis­la­va, VfB ulti­m­ate­ly secu­res a con­fi­dent 3–1 vic­to­ry, taking the first neces­sa­ry step toward advan­cing. Howe­ver, after taking an ear­ly lead, the team missed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther impro­ve its stan­ding in the table.

First of all, let’s not com­plain too much here. The team with the red chest ring has now won its fourth com­pe­ti­ti­ve match in a row and main­tai­ned much of the exci­te­ment from pre­vious games throug­hout this one. With ten points from seven games, VfB still has a chan­ce to qua­li­fy for the Cham­pi­ons League knock­out stage, regard­less of Wednesday’s results. And if that doesn’t work out, it would be unfort­u­na­te, but given their strong league posi­ti­on and the upco­ming dome­stic cup quar­ter­fi­nal, it wouldn’t be a dis­as­ter. So, after the 3–1 in Bra­tis­la­va, there’s real­ly no room for com­plaints.

Still, it’s a bit frus­t­ra­ting that the team didn’t reward its­elf more for its per­for­mance. Defen­si­ve sta­bi­li­ty and coun­ter­at­tack­ing pro­wess were rare­ly evi­dent against the Slo­va­ki­an cham­pi­ons for much of the match. Only when the team star­ted inter­pre­ting the coach’s ins­truc­tions for focu­sed, coll­ec­ti­ve defen­ding a bit more loo­se­ly and began making more pas­sing errors did it beco­me appa­rent what the later con­so­la­ti­on goal con­firm­ed: Slo­van was a team that would poun­ce on even the smal­lest mista­kes, hoping to capi­ta­li­ze on them. For­t­u­na­te­ly, they only mana­ged that once. On a few other occa­si­ons, it came close—or at least it felt that way. In rea­li­ty, the stats paint a dif­fe­rent pic­tu­re: 6:21 shots, 2:7 shots on tar­get, 1:10 big chan­ces, 4:19 (!) cor­ners, and expec­ted goals (xG) values of 0.62:3.05 (all from Fot­mob).

A small downside

Within the­se stats lies a small down­si­de: after seven of eight games, VfB still has a goal dif­fe­rence of ‑1, mea­ning they’re still grap­pling with the unneces­s­a­ri­ly hea­vy defeat in Bel­gra­de. That might not ulti­m­ate­ly matter—or it might. The team’s ver­sa­ti­li­ty is clear, as Lewe­ling and Rie­der scored this time. But with one or two more goals—well within the realm of possibility—the chan­ces of pro­gres­sing would have been even bet­ter. Add to that the con­ce­ded goal, whe­re a mid­field duel was lost, lea­ding to a coun­ter­at­tack despi­te VfB’s lead.

But this is the Cham­pi­ons League, and even a win­less Slo­van Bra­tis­la­va isn’t as harm­less as Frei­burg last Satur­day. If we end up stuck in the group stage—and that’s not even certain—it cer­tain­ly won’t be becau­se of a 3–1 away win. And as VfB fans, there’s no reason to be pes­si­mi­stic. Even if the team took its foot off the gas a bit after 2–0, they exten­ded their win­ning streak, show­ca­sed impres­si­ve attack­ing foot­ball, and most­ly main­tai­ned defen­si­ve focus—all in the con­text of a com­pe­ti­ti­on whe­re no oppo­nent should be unde­re­sti­ma­ted.

Little to Lose in the Final

Now we face a true final against Paris, but one whe­re, espe­ci­al­ly against such an oppo­nent, we don’t have much to lose. Bes­i­des, this group-stage table with only eight games is inher­ent­ly volatile—we could still even over­ta­ke Dort­mund. For now, though, the focus shifts to Mainz on Satur­day: the next chal­len­ging oppo­nent, the next oppor­tu­ni­ty to rota­te fresh play­ers into the lin­e­up, and this time, hop­eful­ly, to hold onto a 2–0 lead more con­vin­cin­g­ly. Just like in Bra­tis­la­va.

Pic­tu­re: © Chris­ti­an Hofer/Getty Images

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