VThere was encouraging applause from the fans who had traveled with them, and yet VfB Stuttgart came up empty-handed again. The traditional club continues to fall seemingly unchecked towards the third Bundesliga relegation in just seven years. Despite a decent performance and Tiago Tomas’ debut goal, the penultimate team lost 4-2 (0-1) at Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday night, making them four points behind the relegation spot as the most unsuccessful team in the 2022 calendar year. From the last seven games, VfB scored just one point for coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, who, according to the club, is by no means available.
“We have to look at the table, only won four games. Four points behind is not ten. But it also means you can’t fix it with a game. It takes several victories from games against opponents at eye level,” said VfB sports director Sven Mislintat on the Sky TV channel. Chris Führich also remains optimistic: “We’ll pull out the positives and not let ourselves down. We know the situation. We just have to keep going. We still have many games. Everyone stays tuned and works hard.”
Bayer, on the other hand, is still the most successful team in the new year. After five goals in a row twice before, there were four goals again on Saturday in front of 10,000 admitted spectators. Moussa Diaby, three times successful in the 5-1 win in the last home game against Augsburg, after a nice solo (41st), Amine Adli, who is only 1.74 meters tall, with a header (52nd), young star Florian Wirtz (85th) and striker Patrik Schick (89th) scored. Tiago Tomas, on loan from Sporting Lisbon in the winter, scored twice for VfB on his debut in the Bundesliga (49th and 88th). With a seven-point lead in fifth place, Leverkusen is still on course for the Champions League, which they missed twice recently.
Without Anton and Marmoush
“We definitely play good football. I don’t know if we’re going to play the prettiest one. It’s unbelievably fun,” said Wirtz and keeper Lukas Hradecky enthused: “The lads brought the quality back. This is pure entertainment. It was an important win, that gives us some breathing space.”
Leverkusen had to replace national defender Jonathan Tah at short notice due to an infection, so Edmond Tapsoba had to work directly just three days after his return from the Africa Cup of Nations. As expected, captain and goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky was back in goal after his compulsory Corona break last week. Defense chief Waldemar Anton and striker Omar Marmoush were missing at VfB after positive corona tests, as well as the ailing striker Sasa Kalajdzic.
Bayer were the dominant team from the start and had more than 70 percent possession of the ball. Coach Gerardo Seoane kept calling for “tempo, tempo” from the outside. But the Swabians countered with a good order and were quite dangerous themselves. Three times almost a goal was scored before Diaby’s stroke of genius, which was blocked after a dribble and simply continued to dribble. Twice for Bayer with a shot at the post by Patrick Schick (13′) and an offside goal by Florian Wirtz (34′), once for VfB with a bang by Tiago Tomas (28′).
After the change it quickly became turbulent. First Tiago Tomas scored after a nice pass from Orel Mangala. The jubilation of the 400 VfB fans died down 2:37 minutes later when Adli headed in Kerem Demirbay’s free kick to make it 2:1. After that, Bayer controlled the game even more clearly. At times, VfB hardly ever got the ball in the long relays. Bayer just lacked determination against at least heartily defending Swabians. Only towards the end almost every shot was a hit. The game was only decided by Schick’s 19th goal of the season.
