Run Over

In the away match in Munich, VfB spent the enti­re 90 minu­tes cha­sing after the record cham­pi­ons. A sobering per­for­mance, even regard­less of the opponent’s qua­li­ty.

Sure: Just becau­se of one good sea­son, it doesn’t mean we’re sud­den­ly on equal foo­ting with clubs like Bay­ern or our next oppo­nent, in who­se city I’m alre­a­dy stay­ing. Still, the dif­fe­rence bet­ween the two teams is not as big as the cour­se of the match and the result of the not-so-high­ly-anti­ci­pa­ted “South Sum­mit” might sug­gest. The fact that Bay­ern ulti­m­ate­ly secu­red a ful­ly deser­ved 4–0 vic­to­ry, even in terms of the score­li­ne, was main­ly due to the fact that abso­lut­e­ly not­hing work­ed for VfB: no con­sis­tent defen­ding, two com­ple­te­ly over­whel­med full-backs in Vagno­man and debutant Hen­driks, a mid­field that had no grip on the game for all four goals, and an attack lack­ing bite and crea­ti­vi­ty.

Too Much Rotation?

Per­haps the rota­ti­on was a bit too much, and may­be the legs of Maxi Mit­tel­städt and Enzo Mil­lot should have been saved for the end of the match. But far more gla­ring was the fact that Bay­ern beat VfB at their own game from last sea­son, sen­ding one dia­go­nal ball after ano­ther behind the red-and-white back­li­ne, while the Stutt­gart play­ers unsuc­cessful­ly resor­ted to long balls that they couldn’t make use of due to a lack of strength in duels. VfB never found a way into this game.

And they never gai­ned a foot­hold. Har­ry Kane’s long-ran­ge shot to make it 1–0 was only logi­cal after a first half full of missed chan­ces. Josh Vagno­man had a chan­ce like this in the second half, but he squan­de­red it just as hasti­ly and care­less­ly as his team was­ted the enti­re game. The second, third, and fourth goals were a dis­he­ar­tening remin­der of the loss of con­trol that see­med to have been over­co­me in the ear­ly matches  — and even worse, they brought back memo­ries of the hel­p­less­ness of past years, when VfB regu­lar­ly got steam­rol­led by Bayern’s qua­li­ty, unable to extin­gu­ish their offen­si­ve fire­works. Nowa­days, howe­ver, the team has both the qua­li­ty and the self-assu­rance to not only stand up to such chal­lenges but to play along. In my pre­view of this game, I wro­te that we didn’t need to hide from the next oppon­ents — but that’s exact­ly what we did on Satur­day.

The Season is a Marathon

Now, this thras­hing is just ano­ther ent­ry in a series of matches whe­re more was pos­si­ble and seems, at first glan­ce, like the tem­po­ra­ry low point of a nega­ti­ve trend. Howe­ver, this over­looks the fact that in three matches, VfB was at times very domi­nant, once undo­ne by the refe­ree, once by a strong oppo­nent, and once most­ly by them­sel­ves. The game in Munich was the oppo­si­te of domi­nant, and Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß right­ly announ­ced that they couldn’t just return to busi­ness as usu­al after­ward — as used to be the case in the past. The gap bet­ween the team’s poten­ti­al and what was shown in Munich was sim­ply too gre­at.

At the same time, we must pro­per­ly assess the first real dry spell in Hoeneß’s ten­ure. Yes, the game was cata­stro­phic, and the coming weeks won’t be easy. But this team has boun­ced back from set­backs befo­re, and the sea­son doesn’t end at Christ­mas. A mas­si­ve impro­ve­ment is nee­ded against Juven­tus and espe­ci­al­ly against Kiel. But this sea­son is a mara­thon, and we can’t just throw a tan­trum and give up after five kilo­me­ters.

And now it’s time to say: Dopo tut­ta la mer­da si par­te per il viag­gio. Stoc­car­da inter­na­zio­na­le!

Pic­tu­re: © Adam Pretty/Getty Images