Stuttgart head coach confident in central defensive options against Borussia Dortmund | OneFootball

Ahead of this weekend’s forthcoming Bundesliga fixture against Borussia Dortmund, VfB Stuttgart trainer Sebastian Hoeneß spoke on building the proper defense to contain striker Serhou Guirassy. The BVB front man has been in a bit of a form slump as of late, but that doesn’t make one of the league’s top forwards any less dangerous. 

Hoeneß’ current defensive set up has been anything but stabile. A rotating cast of characters have been filling in a new back-three whilst Hoeneß rotates the forward wingback positions heavily. Stuttgart entered the international break winners of two consecutive matches on the trot, but struggled defensively in their last league fixture against Augsburg. 

Hoeneß opted to give the man responsible to anchoring his back-three, German centre-back Jeff Chabot, a break in the last match. Congenitally injured central defender Dan-Axel Zagadou stepped in to lead a back-three that also featured Maximilian Mittelstädt and Finn Jeltsch. Zagadou went the full 90 minutes, registered an assist, and performed exceptionally well. 

Prior to the Augsburg match, Jeff Chabot ran the back three flanked by the same players against Feyenoord in the Europa League. Prior to that, Zagadou started alongside Jeltsch and Ameen Al-Dakhil. Asked whether it would be Zagadou or Chabot’s turn against Dortmund, Hoeneß hinted toward the latter when speaking at his Friday pre-match press conference. 

One shouldn’t forget that it was against Dortmund in the Rückrunde last season that Chabot finally bagged his first-ever Bundesliga goal. Two more tallies would follow as Chabot finished out the 2024/25 campaign strongly. Chabot turned in an exceptionally strong training camp this summer, and, were it not for an ill-timed injury early on, might have worked his way into the German national team discussion.

Hoeneß still left it open.

Both could still play. 

“In general, I think he [Zagadou] has been making good progress,” Hoeneß said. “Daxo [Zagadou] is and will remain a player that we’ll be taking into consideration. We have to be careful with him, but that’s also being steadily reduced. 

“[When it comes to Dortmund], Jeff played well against Serhou [Guirassy] twice last season,” Hoeneß continued. “And he was always strong against us when playing for Köln during away matches.

“Both [Chabot and Zagadou] are strong in the air,” Hoeneß nevertheless concluded. “They’re both absolute machines aerially. They’re both strong physically and absolute leaders. We’re glad that both are fit and available to us.“

GGFN | Peter Weis