Proud

At the reig­ning Cham­pi­ons League champion’s home, VfB Stutt­gart per­for­med at eye level for a long time but ulti­m­ate­ly had to con­ce­de to the opponent’s qua­li­ty. Howe­ver, fans and the team made their return to the inter­na­tio­nal stage a cele­bra­ti­on.

We’ve heard it far too often over the past few years: Good per­for­mance, made life dif­fi­cult for the oppo­nent, if only we had taken our chan­ces, but we can build on this per­for­mance. Usual­ly, this fol­lows games against top Ger­man teams. But against the Cham­pi­ons League title­hol­der, the­se are not just emp­ty words; they’re almost a badge of honor. VfB is back and tur­ned the match at the Estadio Sant­ia­go Ber­nabéu almost into a home game. In the stands, the fiery red away end stood out, but also else­whe­re in the sta­di­um, as seen during Deniz Undav’s cele­bra­ted equa­li­zer. On the pitch, too, the team in the jer­sey with the red stri­pe show­ed what they’re capa­ble of, though they didn’t just fall short against the oppo­nent but also a bit due to their own missed chan­ces.

But that’s how it is against Real Madrid. If you aren’t extre­me­ly effi­ci­ent, soo­ner or later a goal will come for the Madri­le­ni­ans. Kyli­an Mbap­pé capi­ta­li­zed on the wide-open spaces Stutt­gart allo­wed right after the restart for the lead, and Toni Rüdi­ger essen­ti­al­ly sea­led the match with a powerful hea­der. By the time End­rick scored the late 3–1, it was almost inci­den­tal. But just as you shouldn’t begrudge a play­er, who left VfB nine years ago wit­hout a grand fare­well, for cele­bra­ting against one of his for­mer clubs, neither should VfB fans be too upset about the loss in the first of eight Cham­pi­ons League matches.

Not just there to participate

Becau­se VfB didn’t just show up at the Ber­nabéu to be part of the occa­si­on; they play­ed their usu­al game to the ext­ent pos­si­ble against such a dan­ge­rous oppo­nent. Can’t do any­thing against some of Real’s dribbles? Well, at times, Real couldn’t cope with VfB’s offen­se eit­her, except for Thibaut Cour­tois, who was named Man of the Match for good reason. Enzo Mil­lot dis­play­ed his blos­so­ming class on the ball. Jamie Lewe­ling, who scored against VfB for Fürth three years ago, was a con­stant thre­at up front and set up the first Cham­pi­ons League goal in a VfB jer­sey in over 14 years. Even Anrie Cha­se, reward­ed with a sub­sti­tu­ti­on for his recent strong per­for­man­ces, had a solid game.

And then there’s Deniz Undav. He was busy for a long time but as unlu­cky as his team­ma­tes in front of goal, befo­re he tap­ped in a cross from Jamie Lewe­ling into the far cor­ner, wrong-foo­ting the goal­kee­per. His per­for­mance allo­wed Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß to rest the in-form Erme­din Demi­ro­vic, who scored twice on Satur­day, for the upco­ming Dort­mund match, even though Demi­ro­vic couldn’t influence the game much after being sub­bed on. VfB even sur­vi­ved an Oscar-wort­hy acting per­for­mance from Anto­nio Rüdi­ger and a dan­ge­rous givea­way by Ange­lo Stil­ler in their own box, thanks to com­mit­ted coll­ec­ti­ve defen­ding, which at times even led to coun­ter­at­tacks.

Like we were never away

That’s ano­ther cli­ché, but we can be proud of this team, this per­for­mance, and this appearance on Europe’s big­gest stage. This match — and of cour­se, tho­se to fol­low — are what we ear­ned after last sea­son and after count­less dis­ap­poin­ting games in the past deca­de. VfB is back, and for the older among us, it feels like they never left. The magic that glued me to the TV on Octo­ber 1, 2003, is the same as in 2007 at Nou Camp or again on Tues­day evening. The last time I was pro­ba­b­ly this ner­vous was during the rele­ga­ti­on play­offs, both befo­re and during the match, even though this was just the first of eight Cham­pi­ons League games, and the­re was rela­tively litt­le at sta­ke. But ima­gi­ne if we had mana­ged to get a point!

One key takea­way, per­haps the most important one, from this game: VfB did not get com­ple­te­ly over­run at the end or in bet­ween, like they did in Lever­ku­sen or Frei­burg. Of cour­se, this was a spe­cial occa­si­on, so ever­yo­ne was extra focu­sed, but it was also a much hig­her qua­li­ty game than your avera­ge Bun­des­li­ga match. Deniz Undav signal­ed to his team­ma­tes during his sub­sti­tu­ti­on to stay sharp and keep their heads in the game. For the most part, they suc­cee­ded, which gives hope that the team not only gai­ned expe­ri­ence from this match, as Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß empha­si­zed, but also con­fi­dence and deve­lo­p­ment for the upco­ming games.

Now, with Dort­mund and Wolfs­burg coming up, it’s not exact­ly a com­ple­te chan­ge of pace, but with BVB, we’ll be facing the other Cham­pi­ons League fina­list. This night at the Ber­nabéu will be remem­be­red for a long time. Now it’s about con­ti­nuing the sto­ry of this sea­son suc­cessful­ly.

Pic­tu­re: © Angel Martinez/Getty Images