Magnificent Millot | OneFootball

Magnificent Millot | OneFootball

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·23 settembre 2024

Magnificent Millot

Immagine dell'articolo:Magnificent Millot

The­re are so many sto­ries to tell about this magni­fi­cent 5–1 vic­to­ry over Borus­sia Dort­mund, the fourth con­se­cu­ti­ve win against the Black and Yel­lows. For exam­p­le, the sto­ry of Enzo Camil­le Alain Mil­lot.

That felt good. The reassu­rance that the team can once again reach simi­lar levels of play as they did last sea­son. The fact that all the money Dort­mund spent on our cap­tain and our top scorer made no dif­fe­rence at all on this Sun­day evening. Even more so: it brought them abso­lut­e­ly not­hing, as one had to con­ce­de five goals, and the other bare­ly posed any thre­at to our goal. This show of power demons­tra­tes that, after the fourth con­se­cu­ti­ve vic­to­ry against BVB, we not only hold the brag­ging rights for ano­ther six months but also have the upper hand in sport­ing terms. The 5–1 was Borussia’s big­gest defeat sin­ce the 5–1 four years ago in the West­fa­len­sta­di­on. Who would have thought that Dort­mund would beco­me our favo­ri­te oppo­nent?


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This vic­to­ry came from a team that, like against Real Madrid ear­lier in the week (!) and despi­te that emo­tio­nal­ly and phy­si­cal­ly exhaus­ting match, play­ed to its limit and deli­ver­ed a high­ly focu­sed per­for­mance on the pitch. Dort­mund hard­ly knew what was hap­pe­ning to them when it was alre­a­dy 2–0, thanks to goals from Stuttgart’s new strike duo, Erme­din Demi­ro­vic and Deniz Undav. This sea­son is only four match­days old, and with seven com­pe­ti­ti­ve games in total, the sup­po­sed 50-mil­li­on-euro strike force has alre­a­dy scored ten goals tog­e­ther, five each. That also feels good. The halft­i­me lead was set up by Maxi Mit­tel­städt, who was recent­ly pre­dic­ted by a Spox edi­tor to have a very tough sea­son, but show­ed signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ment after a dif­fi­cult match in Madrid.

Inimitable, powerful, magnificent

That a 2–0 lead is no gua­ran­tee for three points was shown in the last home game. Howe­ver, one play­er brushed asi­de all tho­se typi­cal VfB fears in the second half: Enzo Mil­lot. In recent games, he had alre­a­dy shown in his sub­sti­tu­te appearan­ces that he could take the team’s offen­si­ve play to a new level. On this day, he prac­ti­cal­ly deci­ded the game sin­gle-han­dedly. Ini­mi­ta­b­ly, he snuck into the penal­ty area bey­ond the off­side line after taking a cor­ner hims­elf and, com­ple­te­ly unmark­ed, slot­ted home the cru­cial 3–0 past Dortmund’s bewil­de­red defen­se, inclu­ding Wal­de­mar Anton. Powerful, how he punis­hed Dort­mund for sub­sti­tu­ting on Emre Can, inter­cep­ting his bad pass at the cen­ter cir­cle and sen­ding Deniz Undav on his way to a brace and the 5–1 final score.

The set­up for the 4–1, the first goal of the sea­son for new sig­ning El Bil­al Tou­ré, can only be descri­bed as magni­fi­que, mea­ning magni­fi­cent. The­re wasn’t real­ly much space on the right side after the throw-in to advan­ce toward the goal. Unless, of cour­se, your name is Enzo Mil­lot and you can do wha­te­ver you want with the ball. Mil­lot and the ball danced along and on the goal line, lea­ving two Dort­mund defen­ders in the dust befo­re the VfB mid­fiel­der made the unfort­u­na­te Gre­gor Kobel look bad and tur­ned his solo run into an assist. He alre­a­dy had the chan­ce to turn the match in our favor ear­ly against the slight­ly toug­her-to-beat Cham­pi­ons League fina­list – against Dort­mund, he made up for that.

On Fire

Now, of cour­se, I don’t want to place Mil­lot abo­ve the rest of the team, but this game was undoub­ted­ly his mas­ter­pie­ce. At the same time, he repres­ents many other play­ers who have been on fire in a VfB jer­sey, espe­ci­al­ly under Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß. We were used to new sig­nings see­ing their care­ers fal­ter with us or being trap­ped in medio­cri­ty – with a few excep­ti­ons. But recent­ly, we’ve been bles­sed with play­ers who not only func­tion excel­lent­ly as a team but are also capa­ble of deli­ve­ring incre­di­ble indi­vi­du­al per­for­man­ces. Like the total 46 league goals from Gui­ras­sy and Undav last sea­son, for exam­p­le. Or the goal­kee­ping from Alex­an­der Nübel. Or, most recent­ly, the sprint from new sig­ning Fabi­an Rie­der down the side­line.

And the team didn’t just shi­ne in terms of play. After the unfort­u­na­te per­for­man­ces against Frei­burg and Mainz and the weak first half in Mön­chen­glad­bach, the play­ers with the chest ring not only fought their way through this “Eng­lish week” but tur­ned it into a cele­bra­ti­on week – despi­te the defeat in Madrid. Of cour­se, that doesn’t mean we’ll roll over Wolfs­burg, Pra­gue, and Hof­fen­heim as domi­nant­ly as we did against Dort­mund. But this per­for­mance should give the team even more con­fi­dence, espe­ci­al­ly for the toug­her matches whe­re the oppo­nent fights back. And we still have Mil­lot. Mil­lot magni­fi­que!

Pho­to: © Alex Grimm/Getty Images

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