All about the next game: Atalanta at home | OneFootball

With Ata­lan­ta BC coming to the Neckar­sta­di­on tonight, we’­re likely facing one of the toug­hest oppon­ents in the Cham­pi­ons League group stage. At the same time, VfB has sta­bi­li­zed and is well-staf­fed — yet a more acti­ve per­for­mance than on Fri­day in Lever­ku­sen will be neces­sa­ry to keep the home record int­act.

Real, Spar­ta, Juven­tus, and now Ata­lan­ta. The impres­si­ve list of club names gra­cing our sche­du­le this autumn still feels incre­di­ble. Tonight marks our second home game in the Cham­pi­ons League and ano­ther major test for the Neckar­sta­di­on, which hasn’t seen VfB lose in over a year. Even though the team with the Red Stri­pe hasn’t shi­ned as bright­ly as it did in the 5–1 win against Dort­mund or the 1–0 in Turin, it con­ti­nues to pro­ve tough to beat. Only three of 15 com­pe­ti­ti­ve matches ended in defeat after 90 minu­tes, and the team took care of busi­ness against Kiel and Kai­sers­lau­tern and secu­red a point in Lever­ku­sen despi­te a tough day. Cer­tain­ly, in the past, we might have picked up a few extra points from some of the­se matches, but given the cur­rent situa­ti­on with the added workload and our oppon­ents’ heigh­ten­ed per­cep­ti­on of us, this record is quite accep­ta­ble. Sure, last sea­son we had to stretch for every win, and this year’s stress test is pro­ving even more inten­se. A per­for­mance like the one in Turin will be nee­ded twice this week if VfB wants to come out on top. That said, recent results in both com­pe­ti­ti­ons have affor­ded us a litt­le breathing room.

Now let’s turn to

Squad Situation

The situa­ti­on has impro­ved slight­ly: After Ameen Al-Dakhil’s return, Leo­ni­das Ster­giou is final­ly a can­di­da­te for the squad again, so asi­de from the long-term inju­red Daxo Zag­adou, only Jamie Lewe­ling is curr­ent­ly unavailable. On a posi­ti­ve note, Chris Führich’s form is impro­ving ste­adi­ly.

Possible Lineup

It’s an inten­se week, but I don’t expect Hoe­neß to rota­te hea­vi­ly given the qua­li­ty of the oppon­ents. If any­whe­re, rota­ti­on might hap­pen up front, whe­re Demi­ro­vic might start ins­tead of El Bil­al, though El Bil­al will likely look to pro­ve hims­elf off the bench against his for­mer club. Per­haps Rie­der or Cha­se could start for Mil­lot and Rou­ault, but I find that unli­kely.

Statistics

Ata­lan­ta is the eighth Ita­li­an club VfB will face in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on, fol­lo­wing Lazio, Par­ma, Napo­li, Sampdo­ria, both Turin clubs, and Peru­gia. Wins have only been achie­ved against Tori­no, Juven­tus, and Peru­gia. This will be VfB’s 29th Cham­pi­ons League match sin­ce the competition’s incep­ti­on in 1992, and the 15th home game in this com­pe­ti­ti­on. Ata­lan­ta is curr­ent­ly quite a power­house in Ita­ly, and not just this sea­son — their Euro­pa League tri­umph last sum­mer speaks to that. Over the weekend, they defea­ted league lea­ders Napo­li 3–0 and curr­ent­ly have the most goals scored in Serie A. What’s inte­res­t­ing is the effi­ci­en­cy of the Ber­ga­mo club’s offen­se: they’ve scored eight more goals than expec­ted. Addi­tio­nal­ly, they lead the league with 61 shots on tar­get, mea­ning near­ly every other shot is going in. Accor­ding to FBref, they also lead Serie A in shot-crea­ting and goal-crea­ting actions. Howe­ver, they have con­ce­ded 14 goals in 11 games, so they aren’t the defen­si­ve fort­ress Juven­tus is. With 41 shots allo­wed, they sit mid-table defen­si­ve­ly, and their goal­kee­per doesn’t shi­ne par­ti­cu­lar­ly in post-shot xG metrics, so they don’t have much of a “safe­ty net” at the back. The game plan should the­r­e­fo­re be: stay solid defen­si­ve­ly and make the most of scoring chan­ces.

Conclusion

As men­tio­ned at the out­set, our win in Turin has given us a bit of a cushion, and even a home loss tonight wouldn’t be cata­stro­phic — as long as we pick up the likely suf­fi­ci­ent six addi­tio­nal points in Bel­gra­de, against Bern, and after Christ­mas in Bra­tis­la­va. Tonight will cer­tain­ly requi­re a simi­lar­ly focu­sed per­for­mance as in Turin to stand a chan­ce against such a dan­ge­rous team. At the same time, a win could give the team a mas­si­ve boost that could car­ry us through the coming weeks. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is here, just like it was two weeks ago in the Juven­tus Sta­di­um.

Pic­tu­re: © Fran­ces­co Pecoraro/Getty Images