After the end of an impressive series – there were four home wins before this 2-3 defeat against Hoffenheim – it took them a while at VfB Stuttgart to put this rather exciting game into perspective. “Sometimes there are days like that,” said VfB sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth in perfect Berliner to the waiting journalists. “But you certainly didn’t believe that we would get through the season without a defeat.”
Not really, and given the sequence of goals – VfB was first 0:2, then 1:3 behind – you couldn’t even have expected that it would be so exciting again until referee Felix Zwayer finally called at around 5.30 p.m clock whistled. But then Stuttgart’s Deniz Undav scored to make it 2-3 and Hoffenheim’s best, goalkeeper Oliver Baumann, had to save three times in dire need – in the six minutes of added time alone, mind you.
As always this season, the best entertainment was on offer in Bad Cannstatt. And yet it seemed as if the Stuttgart game was missing something compared to the four previous home games. Or was someone missing? Serhou Guirassy, for example, and more than just physically? Instead of the Guinean, who according to coach Sebastian Hoeneß was sidelined due to a “small, structural muscle injury” in his thigh, his deputy Deniz Undav took the penalty – and failed because of Baumann.
The fact that Guirassy would have scored his 15th goal of the season in this situation is of course a completely speculative assumption, especially since Wohlgemuth was right when he emphasized that the striker’s absence had been “compensated well as a team”. Especially since there was also the second man on the pitch next to Guirassy, who has recently made particularly euphoric headlines as an individual: Chris Führich, who has been able to call himself a “national player” for a few days and was the most noticeable player in his team on Saturday, shot that Stuttgart 1:2. And despite the missed penalty, Guirassy backup Undav was of course also worth his effort. Before the game, “everyone only talked about Serhou or his absence,” said Hoeneß. “I was very happy with Deniz, today he scored another goal and an assist.”
TSG coach Matarazzo shows similar vehemence as his team
When both teams met in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons, Hoeneß was still on the Hoffenheim bench and Pellegrino Matarazzo was still on the Stuttgart bench. When they met in reverse work clothes, Matarazzo, who is called “Rino” on both sides, did a much greater amount of work on Saturday in terms of gestures and running on the sidelines before Hoeneß caught up towards the end. Matarazzo showed a similar vehemence as his team, which narrowed down the space well, countered cleverly and fought until the final phase for the three points that lifted the team into the top third of the table.
TSG keeper Baumann, who was responsible for the majority of the six minutes of added time with his provocatively slow shots, was outstanding, but substitute Anton Stach and goal scorers Maximilian Beier, Robert Skov and Wout Weghorst also played well. John Anthony Brooks, who was largely responsible for Frankfurt’s 3-1 win in Sinsheim the previous week, also played in normal form again. This resulted in an away win that was achieved “with freezing cold, a bit of luck and a very good goalkeeper,” as VfB sports director Wohlgemuth aptly analyzed. His team, on the other hand, also showed a really good performance in the ninth game of the season and has 21 out of 27 possible points.
The calmness with which Wohlgemuth analyzed the defeat was more than justified. And yet you could tell the whole time how happy he was about a fifth win in his fifth home game. He was no different than his players. Hardly any of them left the pitch without shaking their heads very persistently and very frustratedly. VfB seems to have a lot of confidence this season – and so did Saturday’s winner.