Ruthless | OneFootball

In their second home Cham­pi­ons League game against Ata­lan­ta, the unbea­ten streak at Neckar­sta­di­on comes to an end. The team actual­ly does a lot right and makes only a few mistakes—but the­se mista­kes are all the more cos­t­ly.

Final­ly got a foot­hold again. After Bay­er Lever­ku­sen left us out to dry last Fri­day with their relent­less pres­sing, with VfB only see­ing a bit of action near the end of the game, half a week later they demons­tra­ted what they are capa­ble of—at least in part. Defen­si­ve­ly, the team didn’t have to rely sole­ly on their goal­kee­per Alex Nübel and the goal­posts, as they mana­ged to fend off many of the Ita­li­an guests’ attacks—though not all of them. The home loss to Ber­ga­mo is the best exam­p­le of what hap­pens if you don’t play at the abso­lu­te limit against Europe’s eli­te, fail to capi­ta­li­ze on your chan­ces, and don’t have a few situa­tions go your way: you’re ruthl­ess­ly punis­hed. In many sta­tis­tics and for lar­ge stret­ches of the game, VfB was on par with the cur­rent Euro­pa League cham­pi­on. Until two poor­ly defen­ded attacks deci­ded the game.

But this isn’t about poin­ting fin­gers at play­ers like Antho­ny Rou­ault, who missed a tack­le befo­re the 0–2, or Chris Füh­rich and Maxi Mit­tel­städt, who­se pas­si­ve defen­ding led to the 0–1. In many other situa­tions, the team hand­led defen­si­ve tasks well as a unit and wasn’t trap­ped by aim­less long balls for­ward. Quite the oppo­si­te: Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß and his play­ers quick­ly reco­gni­zed that Ata­lan­ta could be shaken by focu­sed defen­ding and quick coun­ter­at­tacks. The defen­se work­ed well, the tran­si­ti­ons too; it’s just that the resul­ting attacks weren’t exe­cu­ted decisi­ve­ly enough. Just a few minu­tes after fal­ling behind, Führich—who was once again impressive—dribbled through the opponent’s penal­ty area but couldn’t find Demi­ro­vic with his pass. Or when the very acti­ve tar­get man El Bil­al laid off a long ball just a bit too short, deny­ing Enzo Mil­lot a one-on-one with Bergamo’s goal­kee­per. Or Jar­z­in­ho Malan­ga, who near­ly crow­ned his debut with a remar­kab­le goal.

The Toughest Opponent?

A Stutt­gart goal was unfort­u­na­te­ly thwar­ted by Bergamo’s very effec­ti­ve defen­se. While Juven­tus had allo­wed almost no goals befo­re facing VfB and main­ly had their goal­kee­per to thank for kee­ping the score down after the defeat, Ata­lan­ta had alre­a­dy con­ce­ded 14 goals in their league befo­re this match. Who knows what that says about Serie A, but in the Cham­pi­ons League, the North Ita­li­ans remain unbea­ten. It’s temp­ting to say that this was per­haps the toug­hest oppo­nent in this new league pha­se for VfB. Sure, Real and Juven­tus have big names and on paper boast excel­lent squads, but both strug­g­led much more against VfB—not for not­hing were Thibaut Cour­tois and Mat­tia Perin each named man of the match. This isn’t to sug­ar­coat the defeat but to put it in per­spec­ti­ve: VfB has had an out­stan­ding sea­son and qua­li­fied for the Cham­pi­ons League as run­ner-up. It should be clear that we’re not at the top of the food chain here, but we’re also no pusho­vers.

Nevert­hel­ess, the sport­ing situa­ti­on remains chal­len­ging. On Sun­day, we’re expec­ting the next strong oppo­nent in Ein­tracht Frank­furt at Neckarstadion—possibly wit­hout Deniz Undav, who had to be sub­sti­tu­ted against Ber­ga­mo due to an inju­ry. For­t­u­na­te­ly, the team has recent­ly been hand­ling the­se absen­ces reason­ab­ly well. Chris Füh­rich is regai­ning form in time to fill in for Lewe­ling, and on Wed­nes­day night, Anrie Cha­se stood in for Jeff Cha­b­ot as if he’d been play­ing at this level for years, show­ing a clear impro­ve­ment from Tuesday’s per­for­mance. After two goal­less games against admit­ted­ly strong defen­ses, it would be nice to see the offen­se get back into gear on Sun­day. Enzo Mil­lot, Chris Füh­rich, Erme­din Demi­ro­vic, and El Bil­al will need to show a bit of ruthl­ess­ness them­sel­ves.

Pic­tu­re: © Alex Grimm/Getty Images