Deniz Undav credits ‘fierce’ Stuttgart fans for propelling team to Europa League victory | OneFootball

Fans of Bundesliga Europa League representatives VfB Stuttgart had to wait quite some time to celebrate an Europa League triumph. In Stuttgart’s last two UEL fixtures (both away) against FC Basel and Fenerbahce SK, the team wasn’t even able to score a goal. The Swabians were finally able to return home for a Thursday night UEL “floodlight fixture” against Feyenoord yesterday evening. 

Sebastian Hoeneß’ Swabians hoped to recapture the optimism inherent after they won their opening Europa League group stage fixture against Celta Vigo. It initially looked as if this would be out-of-reach. Hoeneß’ team struggled to implement their match plan and the match entered the 84th-minute with the score deadlocked at 0-0. 

Thankfully, Stuttgart’s enthusiastic new attacker Bilal El Khannouss finally opened the scoring by netting the 1-0 as full-time approached. Lead striker Deniz Undav – donning the captain’s armband on the night – added the 2-0 at 90+1. Undav spoke with RTL shortly after producing some more late-match-magic for the Württemberger.

“It’s quite the load off,” Undav answered when asked if a big weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “It was an odd game. We had difficulty getting into it. We weren’t able to control matters as we had envisioned. Credit to Bilal for breaking it open. We then defended the lead and got the 2-0 to seal the victory.

“The fans and the club footballers carry us,” Undav continued. “Also the ones that aren’t playing regularly. We push ourselves every day and then the supporters push us up that extra bit. I’ve said it before, we have the fiercest fans. We need to keep our home form strong.“

GGFN | Peter Weis