A Game of Patience | OneFootball

VfB Stutt­gart defied their inju­ry cri­sis and ear­ned a hard-fought but well-deser­ved 2–0 vic­to­ry over Bochum. The team demons­tra­ted that it has a cer­tain level of depth in quality—but also reve­a­led that this qua­li­ty was brought to the field more through indi­vi­du­al effort than coll­ec­ti­ve per­for­mance.

Chris Füh­rich ran. And pas­sed. And ran. And pas­sed. And when he final­ly took a shot—because all the pas­sing lanes were clo­sed and Maxi Mit­tel­städt wasn’t available on the wing—he cur­led the ball into Bochum’s net with an uni­ma­gi­nable arc. A moment that encap­su­la­ted much of the game against the league’s bot­tom team, a match VfB had to start wit­hout three stri­kers and their mid­field play­maker. They faced a Bochum side that was cor­ne­red at the bot­tom of the table and eager to take points not only off the reig­ning cham­pi­on but also off the run­ner-up.

Against a Bochum team sit­ting deep in defen­se, VfB mana­ged to crea­te attacks but strug­g­led to gene­ra­te tru­ly dan­ge­rous chan­ces. This was part­ly due to indi­vi­du­al mista­kes, as with Josha Vagno­man, and part­ly becau­se the team wea­ring the chest ring fai­led to make effec­ti­ve use of the few pas­sing lanes the league’s bot­tom team left open. Time and again, the play­ers made the wrong decis­i­ons when it came to dri­ving the ball for­ward or lay­ing it off. As a result, Erme­din Demi­ro­vić often found hims­elf iso­la­ted, and sea­so­ned VfB fans were essen­ti­al­ly just wai­ting for Bochum—who grew stron­ger mid­way through the game—to sneak in an awk­ward, scrap­py goal.

Clinical Quality

In the end, howe­ver, VfB’s qua­li­ty pre­vai­led. First, through a bril­li­ant dia­go­nal ball from retur­ning play­er Leo Ster­giou to the afo­re­men­tio­ned Chris Füh­rich, and then through the very first tou­ch­es of sub­sti­tu­tes Fabi­an Rie­der and Jus­tin Diehl. Both goals, inci­den­tal­ly, were ulti­m­ate­ly initia­ted by goal kicks from Alex­an­der Nübel, which says a lot about Bochum’s defen­si­ve strug­gles. VfB’s ruthl­ess­ness in crus­hing the visi­tors’ hopes for an away point was evi­dent not only in Diehl’s ice-cold finish for his debut goal but also in the fact that Bochum had a gol­den oppor­tu­ni­ty to take the lead just befo­re Führich’s ope­ner, fol­lo­wing a poor­ly cle­ared ball into the cen­ter.

A glim­mer of light, then, at the end of the some­what gloo­my tun­nel of this inter­na­tio­nal break, which had been overs­ha­dowed by the loss to Frank­furt and the long-term inju­ries to Undav and El Bil­al. VfB has shown that they can secu­re the wins they are expec­ted to and head into the final stretch befo­re Christ­mas on a posi­ti­ve note. The team demons­tra­tes indi­vi­du­al qua­li­ty in depth, even if the over­all coor­di­na­ti­on is still lacking—or per­haps pre­cis­e­ly becau­se of the inju­ries. Curr­ent­ly, Chris Füh­rich is also a key fac­tor. As was the case last sea­son, other play­ers are step­ping up at just the right time to fill the gaps left by inju­ries, sus­pen­si­ons, or absen­ces.

Patiently Piecing It Together

More pati­ence will be requi­red in the coming weeks, even though, for ins­tance, Ange­lo Stil­ler was able to con­tri­bu­te 30 minu­tes at the end of the match, slight­ly easing the inju­ry con­cerns. Offen­si­ve­ly, the right flank with Ster­giou and Vagno­man has yet to deli­ver the desi­red impact, but Mil­lot is likely to return to the more dan­ge­rous attack­ing mid­field posi­ti­on in Belgrade—especially as Wol­te­ma­de is ine­li­gi­ble to play in the Cham­pi­ons League. The limi­t­ed per­son­nel con­ti­nues to make rota­ti­on a chall­enge. But as with any puz­zle, pati­ence is key.

Pic­tu­re: © Alex­an­der Hassenstein/Getty Images