Reward for Courage

VfB con­cludes the first half of the sea­son with a well-deser­ved, albeit some­what sur­pri­sing, vic­to­ry against Leip­zig fol­lo­wing Sunday’s match. The team reward­ed them­sel­ves and their coach for his bold lin­e­up choices with a spi­ri­ted per­for­mance.

One could cer­tain­ly get used to vic­to­ries for Mario Gomez and his team, espe­ci­al­ly when they’re achie­ved as dyna­mi­cal­ly as they were on Wed­nes­day evening. VfB mana­ged to defeat Leipzig’s bevera­ge sub­si­dia­ry for the second time in a row, some­thing that see­med impos­si­ble in recent years, and ended the first half of this sea­son in fifth place with 29 points—their second-best record sin­ce their cham­pi­on­ship sea­son. This out­co­me wasn’t appa­rent on Sun­day evening (what an inten­se sche­du­le, unbe­lie­va­ble). While the team also won that match—away from home and wit­hout con­ce­ding a goal—it was against an oppo­nent who­se lack of thre­at was only sur­pas­sed yes­ter­day in Uni­on Berlin’s direct clash.

This doesn’t mean VfB isn’t bet­ter than a nar­row 1–0 against Augs­burg. On the con­tra­ry: we are much bet­ter. And against Leip­zig, the team show­ed it, ral­ly­ing after an unneces­sa­ry deficit—and an even more unneces­sa­ry cele­bra­ti­on by Ses­ko aimed at the Cannstat­ter Kurve—fighting back into the game and rewar­ding them­sel­ves after halft­i­me with two stun­ning goals. The play­ers with the crest on their chests demons­tra­ted exact­ly the bite and deter­mi­na­ti­on that were miss­ing in Augs­burg after the first 30 minu­tes.

In my post-match report, I spe­cu­la­ted that VfB would once again adapt to their oppo­nent on Wed­nes­day and sub­se­quent­ly impro­ve their per­for­mance. And that’s pre­cis­e­ly what hap­pen­ed. Even though Leip­zig had their attack­ing trio—Sesko, Xavi, and Openda—fully available this time, they mana­ged just one goal and only six shots over­all against a pas­sio­na­te­ly defen­ding VfB team and the post. VfB, on the other hand, took 14 shots, six of which were on tar­get, won near­ly two-thirds of their duels, ran three kilo­me­ters more, and weren’t inti­mi­da­ted by the fourth-pla­ced team’s thre­at. Nor was their coach, who not only repla­ced Maxi Mit­tel­städt, who was deal­ing with a gro­in issue, with Ramon Hen­driks as expec­ted but also rota­ted in seve­ral posi­ti­ons in pre­pa­ra­ti­on for the first mid­week fix­tu­re of the year and Saturday’s home game against Frei­burg. This gave Ameen Al-Dak­hil and Jacob Bru­un Lar­sen their start­ing XI debuts, allo­wing Enzo Mil­lot, Jamie Lewe­ling, and Erme­din Demi­ro­vic to rest on the bench—a luxu­ry given their qua­li­ty as sub­sti­tu­tes.

A Showcase of Talent

Both the team and Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß were reward­ed for their cou­ra­ge. The play­ers threw them­sel­ves into chal­lenges, and Al-Dak­hil, Hen­driks, and Bru­un Lar­sen deli­ver­ed pro­mi­sing per­for­man­ces. Al-Dak­hil, though he com­mit­ted what felt like a few too many fouls, made a cru­cial last-ditch tack­le befo­re the equa­li­zer and impres­sed in the first half with a beau­tiful long ball for­ward. Hen­driks kept his side of the back four most­ly secu­re, and Bru­un Lar­sen crow­ned ano­ther com­mit­ted per­for­mance with a hea­ded goal. At this point, I must offer a mea cul­pa. During his intro­duc­tion, I wasn’t con­vin­ced he could help us in the short term. Evi­dent­ly, he’s eager to pro­ve hims­elf and sees the move from Hoffenheim’s lack of prospects—also evi­dent in their dis­mal per­for­mance last night—to Stuttgart’s fac­to­ry of hope as a libe­ra­ti­on.

Amid all the prai­se for tho­se three, one play­er shouldn’t be for­got­ten: Deniz Undav. In Augs­burg, he scored the decisi­ve goal on the rebound. On Wed­nes­day, he initia­ted both goals: the first with a won­derful cross, the second with his run and shot after an excel­lent pass from the con­sis­t­ent­ly strong Chris Füh­rich. Nick Wol­te­ma­de capi­ta­li­zed on the rebound to notch his fifth goal of the sea­son.

At the post-match press con­fe­rence, Leip­zig coach Mar­co Rose—who began by prai­sing the Neckar­sta­di­on in glo­wing terms—said he sees both VfB and his club back in the Cham­pi­ons League by the end of the sea­son. We’re, of cour­se, still far from that, but Wed­nes­day evening’s match was once again a show­ca­se of what this team is capa­ble of. I’d be con­tent with ano­ther inter­na­tio­nal com­pe­ti­ti­on; what’s most important to me is that the team reta­ins the atti­tu­de they dis­play­ed on Wed­nes­day for every game.

On Satur­day, the team must aven­ge their first-leg loss to Frei­burg, whe­re they col­lap­sed after taking an ear­ly lead. Then, on Tues­day, they’ll face a Bra­tis­la­va side used to win­ning in their dome­stic league and, like Bel­gra­de, will throw ever­y­thing they have into inter­na­tio­nal com­pe­ti­ti­on. If we can main­tain this cou­ra­ge and com­mit­ment, not only will the second half of the sea­son be excel­lent, but Rose’s pre­dic­tion may very well come true.

Pic­tu­re: © Alex Grimm/Getty Images