That Hurt! | OneFootball

VfB deli­ver­ed their first tru­ly poor per­for­mance in the Cham­pi­ons League this sea­son, suf­fe­ring a crus­hing 1–5 defeat in Bel­gra­de. To top it off, it was Silas who star­ted the tur­n­around.

A mid­field ball reco­very, a few quick stri­des toward the penal­ty area, the oppo­nent does­n’t inter­ve­ne, and the ball slips per­fect­ly bet­ween the goal­kee­per and the post. Silas hasn’t scored many goals in the jer­sey with the red stri­pe, but when he does, they’re ones like this. One of the many pain­ful les­sons from Wed­nes­day evening in Bel­gra­de was that VfB couldn’t pre­vent such a goal, despi­te Silas being one of their own play­ers until this sum­mer. Picking just one goal out of five con­ce­ded would be too sim­pli­stic, of cour­se. But becau­se it was the on-loan stri­ker Silas who scored, and becau­se Enzo Mil­lot first care­less­ly lost the ball in a duel and Jeff Cha­b­ot then mere­ly pro­vi­ded token resis­tance, it was emble­ma­tic of the team’s over­all per­for­mance in the Ser­bi­an capi­tal.

It was clear before­hand that the match wouldn’t be easy and that it would take an impro­ved per­for­mance com­pared to the Bochum game. In that game, the team was pati­ent but often unlu­cky, allo­wing a lar­ge­ly toothl­ess Bochum side to hang on despi­te con­trol­ling pos­ses­si­on, befo­re final­ly seal­ing the win. In Bel­gra­de, VfB star­ted well, with Erme­din Demi­ro­vić scoring the ope­ning goal and nar­row­ly miss­ing a second due to a razor-thin off­side call. But why the team then beca­me so dis­or­ga­ni­zed remains a mys­tery to me. Was it becau­se the­re was no dan­ge­rous stri­ker on the bench to ease the pres­su­re on Demi­ro­vić, with Lewe­ling, Undav, and El Bil­al all inju­red? Or is the team still lack­ing a domi­nant cen­tral defen­der who can clear ever­y­thing in the back?

Overload, False Security, Wrong Attitude

It was likely a mix of men­tal over­load, mis­pla­ced con­fi­dence from the ear­ly lead, and the wrong mind­set for the game. Bel­gra­de had lost their first four matches, but they faced Ben­fi­ca, Inter, Mona­co, and Barcelona—teams against which VfB might not have fared any bet­ter. At the same time, Crve­na Zvez­da has play­ed in the Cham­pi­ons League for four con­se­cu­ti­ve years and are Ser­bi­an league cham­pi­ons. They lack qua­li­ty among Europe’s eli­te but not expe­ri­ence or sav­vy. VfB, on the other hand, were sim­ply nai­ve on Wed­nes­day. Pas­cal Sten­zel was out­ma­neu­ver­ed on the flank, Ata Kara­zor missed the ball, and Alex Nübel and Jeff Cha­b­ot fum­bled around their six-yard box during a cor­ner kick. Pre­dic­ta­ble coun­ter­at­tacks were pre­ce­ded by hair-rai­sing ball los­ses.

A com­ple­te­ly was­ted evening from VfB’s per­spec­ti­ve, cap­ped by reports of arbi­tra­ry tre­at­ment by Ser­bi­an poli­ce at the bor­der and the unfort­u­na­te­ly expec­ted attacks on VfB fans by some Crve­na Zvez­da sup­port­ers. One can only respect tho­se fans who, after such expe­ri­en­ces, still endu­red the thras­hing in the sta­di­um. Per­so­nal­ly, I found the who­le situa­ti­on too ris­ky and am reli­e­ved I didn’t have to lin­ger in Bel­gra­de late into Wed­nes­day night to get home. The result and how it came about are pain­ful for ano­ther reason too.

Cracks in Self-Identity

VfB thought they were fur­ther along in their pro­gress, even if they con­stant­ly rei­te­ra­te that they “know whe­re they come from.” In Madrid and Turin, the team put up a fight and even won a match. In Pra­gue, they strug­g­led despi­te their supe­rio­ri­ty. Ata­lan­ta pro­ved to be too strong, as expec­ted. But in Bel­gra­de, the team deli­ver­ed a dis­as­trous per­for­mance against an oppo­nent who was not invin­ci­b­le but more effi­ci­ent. This defeat puts pres­su­re on the next two games against still-win­less Bern and Bra­tis­la­va. It also under­mi­nes the team’s con­fi­dence and iden­ti­ty as figh­ters capa­ble of boun­cing back despi­te set­backs. After the match in Munich, Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß said the team couldn’t just move on as if not­hing hap­pen­ed. On Wed­nes­day evening, he strug­g­led to make sen­se of this deba­cle.

A Call for a Reaction

The team doesn’t have time to wal­low in self-doubt. On Satur­day in Bre­men, the squad will be slight­ly ful­ler, but the oppo­nent will be just as chal­len­ging as Bel­gra­de. Wer­der Bre­men is on par with VfB in the stan­dings and han­ded them a pain­ful away defeat at the end of last sea­son. After making a small step for­ward against Bochum, the team has now taken two steps back, tur­ning the second of three away games within six days into ano­ther pivo­tal moment. A respon­se must come in Bremen—not just with a more dan­ge­rous offen­si­ve dis­play but also in terms of com­po­sure and sav­vy. After the Bochum game, I wro­te that we must con­ti­nue to prac­ti­ce pati­ence. That still holds true. But appar­ent­ly, we also need to deve­lop resi­li­ence and learn to endu­re such pain­ful results, which have beco­me all too rare in recent months.

Image: © Srd­jan Stevanovic/Getty Images