All about the next game: Sparta at home in the Champions League | OneFootball

Wolfs­burg is for­got­ten, tonight we move straight on: For the first time in over 14 years, the Cham­pi­ons League anthem will resound again at Neckar­sta­di­on.

It’s worth paus­ing for a moment at this point. Yes, of cour­se, the refe­ree­ing per­for­mance in Wolfs­burg, a shame about the two points. We could have done more with it, just like against Mainz. But hey: for the second sea­son in a row, our team has been put­ting in very solid per­for­man­ces so far, scoring a ton of goals, dis­mant­ling a Cham­pi­ons League fina­list, and stan­ding up to ano­ther one. And tonight, we’ll be remin­ded through song that we are among the best teams in Euro­pe — at least this sea­son. I can’t stress it enough, but we real­ly can’t app­re­cia­te our good for­tu­ne enough right now. For­got­ten is the second Bun­des­li­ga, for­got­ten are the rele­ga­ti­on play­offs, and the sport­ing decli­ne. Curr­ent­ly, we have five Ger­man natio­nal team play­ers in the squad, our strike duo has each scored four goals in five league games, and tonight we’­re play­ing at the Neckar­sta­di­on, as Hoe­neß said, “Cham­pi­ons League, damn it!” With ever­y­thing that occu­p­ies us from match­day to match­day, you have to take the time to enjoy this. And even more so on such a his­to­ric day, becau­se today, 21 years ago, VfB play­ed a home game in the Cham­pi­ons League for the first time in its club histo­ry (I don’t know a club cal­led Leeds United). The 2–1 win on Octo­ber 1, 2003, against Man­ches­ter United remains his­to­ric to this day. Last year, we spo­ke with goals­corer Imre Sza­bics about it. It would be gre­at if we could expe­ri­ence a simi­lar­ly legen­da­ry evening today and final­ly pick up our first inter­na­tio­nal points of the sea­son. But first, let’s look at the

Personnel Situation

which has slight­ly wor­sened due to the absence of Joshua Vagno­man, who took a knock on his foot in Wolfs­burg. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, Daxo Zag­adou is also miss­ing, as well as long-term absen­tees Leo Ster­giou and Jus­tin Diehl.

In a

Potential Starting Lineup

Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß will have to make some chan­ges:

I could also ima­gi­ne Sten­zel start­ing on the right, but that would pose a cer­tain risk against Sparta’s fast win­gers, as men­tio­ned in the inter­view with Pra­ha fan Jan. Alter­na­tively, Rou­ault could move to the right, and Cha­se could return to the cen­ter. For Al-Dak­hil, this game might still be too ear­ly for a start. Up front, Füh­rich could rota­te in and, along with Mit­tel­städt, could exploit Sparta’s weak wing­backs, just like Lewe­ling on the right. Sin­ce we won’t play again until Sun­day evening, I expect Undav to start ins­tead of Mil­lot, who could still lea­ve his mark on the game later.

Statistics

We’­ve never play­ed against Spar­ta Pra­gue befo­re, asi­de from a fri­end­ly under Bru­no Lab­ba­dia, which we lost 0–2. In the 1978/1979 sea­son, VfB was dra­ma­ti­cal­ly kno­cked out in the UEFA Cup Round of 16 by Sparta’s now-mer­ged city rival Duk­la Pra­gue: 4–1 in the first leg, 0–4 in the return leg. In 1997/1998, we kno­cked out Sla­via Pra­gue 2–0 and 1–1 on our way to the Cup Win­ners’ Cup final. After their first home defeat in 18 months against Olo­mouc on Fri­day, Spar­ta is curr­ent­ly second in the table behind their local rival Sla­via, against whom they will play the der­by on Sun­day. A cer­tain Jan Kli­ment, who plays for Olo­mouc, didn’t score against Spar­ta. Five Spar­ta play­ers have alre­a­dy scored three goals each.

Conclusion

I find it hard to assess Sparta’s strength, but I ima­gi­ne VfB will have the upper hand if, unli­ke in Wolfs­burg, they can bring their qua­li­ties direct­ly to the pitch, dri­ven by a roaring Neckar­sta­di­on. After Saturday’s game, we should defi­ni­te­ly be wary of quick coun­ter­at­tacks, but may­be the Lithua­ni­an refe­ree Man­f­re­das Luk­jan­ci­ukas will have bet­ter visi­on than Sven Jablon­ski. In any case, I’m real­ly loo­king for­ward to tonight. It’s going to be a cele­bra­ti­on!

Pic­tu­re: © Alex Livesey/Getty Images