EUROPA LEAGUE PLAYER RATINGS | Porto 2-0 VfB Stuttgart (agg: 4-1) – Stuttgart crash out of Europe with a poor performance in North Portugal | OneFootball

Following Freiburg’s emphatic victory over Genk earlier on Thursday evening, attention turned to Stuttgart, who travelled to Porto hoping to overturn a one-goal deficit and, in doing so, join their fellow Baden-Württembergers in the quarter finals of this season’s Europa League.

Speaking ahead of the second leg, Sebastian Hoeneß emphasised the magnitude of the occasion: “The very fact that we could go through to the last eight is motivation enough. This game and the evening as a whole won’t be ‘business as usual’. The buzz is already palpable.”

There was a surprise an hour before kick-off when VfB announced their lineup with Jamie Leweling missing. Finn Jeltsch also dropped to the bench, which meant a return for Jeff Chabot and Maximilian Mittelstädt in defence.

Stuttgart made a strong start, pinning their opponents in their own half and forcing Diogo Costa into a fantastic save just 8 minutes in. Angelo Stiller struck a free kick from the edge of the box straight into the wall; the rebound fell to Chris Führich, who struck the ball with serious venom. A big deflection looked as though it may take the ball past Costa, but he leapt high to deny the Germans a dream start.

Just a couple of minutes later, Führich burst down the left wing and picked out an unmarked Deniz Undav inside the box. Quite remarkably, Stuttgart’s in-form man could not find the target.

On the 20-minute mark, Stuttgart suffered an almighty sucker punch against the run of play. Borja Sainz broke on Porto’s left wing, and after wriggling through the VfB defence, the ball fell kindly for William Gomes to poke home at the far post.

Stuttgart responded well and continued to trouble Porto captain Costa; the goalkeeper made excellent saves to again deny Führich as well as Bilal El Khannouss.

By the half-time whistle, the visitors’ dominance was clear for all to see, but what mattered was that they were now trailing by two goals in the tie.

Die Schwaben’s nemesis from the first half, Diogo Costa, was at it once again at the beginning of the second period, this time making an outrageous stop to deny Undav.

The away side continued to dominate the ball but struggled to do much with it, and on 70 minutes, they were made to pay. Porto substitute Victor Froholdt put pay to Stuttgart’s Europa League hopes with an outstanding strike from outside the box.

With the aggregate score at 4-1 for the hosts on the night, the tie was effectively already put to bed, but Nikolas Nartey made sure it was tucked up nicely by getting himself two bookings in the space of 60 seconds with 13 minutes to go.

With that, the home side saw the game out comfortably. Despite dominating for the vast majority of the game, a combination of a lack of threat in front of goal from Stuttgart’s usually uber reliable forward line, and momentary lapses in concentration in defence, cost Sebastian Hoeneß’s team dearly.

Porto 2–0 Stuttgart | Player Ratings

Stuttgart:

Alexander Nübel (4) – Luca Jaquez (4), Ramon Hendriks (5), Jeff Chabot (5), Maximilian Mittelstädt (5) – Angelo Stiller (5), Atakan Karazor (5) – Bilal El Khannouss (5), Deniz Undav (4), Chris Führich (6) – Ermedin Demirović (4)

Others: Nikolas Nartey (–), Tiago Tomás (6), Chema Andrés (-), Badredine Bouanani (-), Lorenz Assignon (-)

GGFN Man of the Match | N/A

GGFN | Harry Good