All about the next game: Regensburg away in the cup | OneFootball

It’s a week with a lot of tra­vel miles. First to Bel­gra­de, then to Bre­men, and today to Regens­burg. At least the strength of the oppon­ents is decre­asing, and hop­eful­ly, the results will impro­ve.

What can be said about this game that hasn’t alre­a­dy been writ­ten in the post-match ana­ly­sis of the draw in Bre­men? The team is cle­ar­ly quite exhaus­ted, both phy­si­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, but still has the indi­vi­du­al qua­li­ty to stay afloat in Bre­men with a 2–2 draw. Of cour­se, that’s a very clo­se-up per­spec­ti­ve: in the league, the team remains within striking distance of the inter­na­tio­nal spots (a feat that would have been half a sen­sa­ti­on just three years ago, as I don’t need to remind anyo­ne). In the Cham­pi­ons League (!), the team is under pres­su­re but still has a chan­ce to reach the next round, and in the DFB-Pokal, there’s a very strong chan­ce of making the quarterfinals—and per­haps even more. If they can avo­id facing the win­ners of Bay­ern vs. Lever­ku­sen and Frank­furt vs. Leip­zig in February’s quar­ter­fi­nals, rea­ching the semi­fi­nals doesn’t seem unrea­li­stic given the remai­ning field. But let’s not take the third step befo­re the first. First up is the away game in Regens­burg, who made it to the Round of 16 with two 1–0 wins; howe­ver, their oppon­ents, Bochum and Fürth, were not exact­ly hea­vy­weights. Regens­burg is firm­ly at the bot­tom of the table and, inclu­ding their two cup games, has scored only seven goals this sea­son while con­ce­ding 33. For today’s match, the­re are real­ly only two key­words: rota­ti­on and man­da­to­ry vic­to­ry.

Personnel Situation

Rota­ti­on is neces­sa­ry to avo­id adding to the list of long-term inju­ries, which alre­a­dy includes Zag­adou, Undav, El Bil­al, Rai­mund, and Lewe­ling. Al-Dak­hil is unfort­u­na­te­ly still sick, and the minu­tes in Regens­burg would have done him good.

Possible Lineup

Even against Kai­sers­lau­tern, the second string show­ed that they have inter­na­li­zed the play­ing phi­lo­so­phy. Given the busy sche­du­le, the team would likely rota­te hea­vi­ly, hoping to sub off Demi­ro­vic ear­ly in the event of a com­for­ta­ble lead. This also means that tho­se on the pitch, as men­tio­ned, will need to pro­ve them­sel­ves.

Statistics

Regensburg’s record in the second divi­si­on and the cup has alre­a­dy been men­tio­ned. In the league, they have five dif­fe­rent goal sco­rers, so no one par­ti­cu­lar­ly stands out. Inte­res­t­ingly, their squad includes three for­mer stri­kers from VfB’s second team—Noah Gan­aus, Eric Hott­mann, and Dejan Galjen—who were quite suc­cessful with our reser­ves. This is the seventh encoun­ter with Jahn Regens­burg over­all, and the first in the cup. The other six matches took place during VfB’s second-divi­si­on years in the 1970s and during our last stint in the lower league. In 2019/2020, VfB came out on top. Almost exact­ly 48 years ago, on Decem­ber 5, 1976, Regens­burg won their only match against VfB. Let’s hope it stays that way; in the return match, VfB famously won 8–0 at Neckar­sta­di­on, with six goals from Ott­mar Hitz­feld and one from our coach’s father.

Conclusion

As men­tio­ned abo­ve, today is about advan­cing effi­ci­ent­ly while con­ser­ving ener­gy. At the same time, the enti­re squad must now take respon­si­bi­li­ty, and play­ers who haven’t had much play­ing time need to show that they are via­ble opti­ons. Under no cir­cum­s­tances should Regens­burg be allo­wed to belie­ve, even for a moment, that an upset is pos­si­ble.

Pic­tu­re: © Micha Will/Bongarts/Getty Images