Somehow it was all pretty strange. Could that be? Could you really believe your eyes? It was just the second half between 1. FC Heidenheim and VfB Stuttgart when a sensation suddenly occurred. It didn’t happen, it just happened, and then when you rubbed your eyes, nothing happened. There was no announcement from the stadium announcer, no display on the scoreboard – not even the video assistant switched on. But it actually happened: Angelo Stiller, 23, made a bad pass.
You had to look a second time to make sure it was really the Stuttgart midfielder who had accidentally played the ball out of bounds. Until now, Stiller was suspected of being error-free or possibly even infallible, but in the 3-1 win in Heidenheim on Sunday they were proven wrong.
“Both teams are under a lot of pressure, you could see that. There were already one or two bad passes,” said Stuttgart’s sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth. Under the rigors of the three competitions, “things don’t always go perfectly,” he explained, “then you have to judge it through passion, grit and will. And that’s what we did.”
So that was the message of these 90 minutes on the Ostalb: If even a fine foot like Stiller can no longer hide how heavy his legs are now and how rarely his head can rest, then more of what used to be needed, for example a certain amount Karlheinz Förster awarded. Förster was less a fine player than a feared iron foot, but he stood like no other for everything that Wohlgemuth emphasized after the game in Heidenheim: passion, grit, will.
“Mentally I find it even more strenuous than physically,” said striker Ermedin Demirovic, “now it’s good that we have a week until the next game.” Beyond the international breaks in October and November, this was last the case at the end of September . Almost three months later, VfB is struggling, but with the forester’s virtues, they rebel again in the last few meters of the year. And this despite the fact that the injury list has not allowed the strain to be spread over several legs and heads for weeks.
For a win against Heidenheim, VfB Stuttgart gets just as many points as for a win in Turin
While Heidenheim has a Conference League team and a Bundesliga team, VfB can hardly rotate – regardless of whether the game plan takes them to the Ostalb or to Turin. Because the Champions League is a showcase in which every player wants to show their premium side, coach Sebastian Hoeneß wouldn’t get away with it if he explained to Demirovic that he needs the best Demirovic, especially in the Bundesliga, in order to keep up to adhere to the international places. And how should he convey to Anthony Rouault or Enzo Millot that the team gets just as many points for a win on the Ostalb as for a win in Turin?
That’s the difference between VfB and Heidenheim, two clubs that flew high last season and are now so stressed by the schedule that even Stiller is starting to make bad passes: VfB has no choice. He has no choice but to try every party he is invited to. Stuttgart cannot set priorities like they are currently doing in Heidenheim in order to somehow muddle through in the Bundesliga.
After Thursday’s 3-1 defeat in Istanbul, Heidenheim’s coach Frank Schmidt called eight new players into his starting line-up against VfB, while Hoeneß only called up one. And Nick Woltemade not only made a name for himself because he decided another Bundesliga game a week after his two goals in the 3-2 win against Union Berlin – but also because his performance could be placed in a larger context.
Woltemade, 22, had such a grueling private duel with Heidenheim’s central defender Patrick Mainka that the old front stopper Karlheinz Förster’s heart must have swelled. With his physical style of play, which he combines with astonishing footballing finesse, Woltemade is an example for VfB. The team continues to show their class as players, but at the moment they also know how to make up for what isn’t going well with passion, grit and determination.
“He is a boy who is really fun to work with because he is open, willing to learn and has character. This is a good basis for his development,” said Hoeneß in Heidenheim about Woltemade. As against Union, the entry from Bremen was the best man on the pitch. First he prepared the 1-0 through Maximilian Mittelstädt, then after Paul Wanner’s equalizer he had his feet in the game when Millot made it 2-1 – and in the final phase he scored the decisive 3-1 with a penalty. Woltemade later said: “It was a very duel game, we accepted that well.”
When he was asked whether the approaching winter break wasn’t coming at the wrong time for him, he said: “Things are going very well for me at the moment, but I’m honestly looking forward to the break.” After the end of the year on Saturday against FC St. Pauli doesn’t have a Bundesliga game scheduled for two whole weekends. After that, of course, there are four English weeks in a row.
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