Both items are not available in the VfB Stuttgart fan shop. The gray parka that Deniz Undav has been wearing for weeks is not available for purchase, nor is his black tube scarf. The same applies to Jamie Leweling’s winter equipment. At the weekend, the two strikers presented their collection again on the prominent catwalk of the Stuttgart stadium. Leweling gave a TV interview before the game against FC St. Pauli, Undav spoke at halftime. And when the game ended with a 1-0 defeat, both of them stood on the pitch heavily masked and knew as little as the rest of the audience what to think of the past 90 minutes, the past weeks and months.
On Saturday evening, the players, those responsible and other relatives of VfB Stuttgart felt like someone who had an indescribably long and wonderful vacation and was stranded on the shuttle bus on the last day of vacation, shortly before reaching the airport. Who then rushes through the ship’s weather into the bright airport building, only to find out in frustration that he will miss the connection. And when he gets home, everyone looks closely at his face and asks worriedly whether he hasn’t recovered well. Yes, the returnee would like to shout, that was just the stupid return flight! The vacation was the best vacation of my life! On the other hand: why explain too much? Nobody would understand it.
VfB Stuttgart now has to live with the fact that after the 0-1 defeat against a brilliantly defending FC St. Pauli they will find themselves in the middle of the table for an entire Christmas break. And that this midfield is unfairly compared with the place in the table from the previous season (2nd) and is therefore discriminated against as mediocre. And that in this strangely narrow table, a simple win against St. Pauli would have been enough to jump to fifth place and sneak back into the Champions League. At VfB, of course, they differentiate, but in the public perception, only this Pauli game stands between a VfB that once again exceeds the already high expectations in a remarkable way and a VfB that now finally has to pay the price for these high expectations.
He was “extremely disappointed,” said coach Sebastian Hoeneß after the 0-1 loss and didn’t mean the general trend, but just this one stupid football game. This game even raised the question of whether the coaching staff had perhaps made a bit of a gamble by not releasing the players Undav and Leweling from their winter uniforms and putting them back into the jersey with the chest ring.
Undav said in the half-time interview that he was fit and could actually play, but “they” decided not to take any risks, and that was understandable. In fact, Undav had already returned to work too early in November, a small muscular problem turned into a torn muscle fiber – on the back of the thigh, the part of the body that is less required in everyday life and in professional sports, and which has become a classic weak point due to overload at VfB; Leweling has been missing since November 1st due to this injury. What didn’t change the fact that by the 74th minute at the latest, the audience was wondering whether Undav’s substitution had frightened the Hamburg opponent more than full-back Pascal Stenzel, who had been substituted on to intensify the final spurt.
There has never been a home game without a goal under Hoeneß
This one game against St. Pauli could be managed before the winter break even without Undav and Leweling, that was the guiding principle in what was, for once, a week without games. In the end, the game against St. Pauli turned out to be one game too many, which was clearly evident in the goal of the day, which suddenly fell at the feet of Pauli’s center forward Johannes Eggestein – after a chain of errors and carelessness that was not accidental The frequent players Anthony Rouault, Jeff Chabot, Angelo Stiller and Maximilian Mittelstädt were involved (21st). VfB ran, passed, crossed, fought and desperately chased this goal for the rest of the season, with a lot of goodwill and many good actions from the newly blossomed Nick Woltemade. But in the end the bottle was empty, as former VfB coach Giovanni Trapattoni would have said.
VfB has experienced and seen a lot this year, most of it was very flattering. VfB has become the main supplier of the German national team and the reference team for many coaches who secretly watch every VfB game to study the moves; VfB fought with Dortmund over two players (and of course lost the fight), made two record transfers (Ermedin Demirovic, Deniz Undav) and won at Juventus Turin in the style of a top European team. In the last game of the year, the Stuttgart team had two new experiences: that a home game went by without a goal of their own, something that had never happened in 28 Hoeneß home games. And the fact that goalkeeper Alexander Nübel saves a penalty (Eggestein, 53rd): a wonder of the world.
In the current season, VfB has again and again demonstrated the heights it can reach, but the sovereignty of a top team not only lacked one or two healthy hamstrings, but also a reliable defensive stance. VfB still has a well-composed team, but against St. Pauli it became clear once again that they had not been able to adequately replace the excellence of the refugee defenders Waldemar Anton (to BVB) and Hiroki Ito (to FC Bayern). “It’s definitely the case that we have to concede fewer goals in the second half of the season,” said Hoeneß, reflecting on 25 goals conceded in 15 games. And without Anton and Ito, the build-up to the game no longer starts at the back, but only in the midfield with Angelo Stiller, who is gradually overloaded.
It is quite possible that VfB will look for a new defender during the winter transfer period. The wild changes during the St. Pauli game, when Hoeneß started with the central defense Chabot/Rouault and later changed it to Chabot/Chase, Chase/Keitel and Chase/Stiller in a demonstrative display of dissatisfaction, can probably be seen as relevant by sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth Understand the hint. And after this 0-1 defeat, there could still be a certain need for offense, despite the impending return of the men in parkas and tube scarves.
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