For the fans of VfB Stuttgart, early Sunday evening must have felt like scenes from the song “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette. Stupid feeling when you meet the man of your life – and shortly afterwards his beautiful wife. Or a disgusting fly suddenly swims in the Chardonnay glass. Or, in the case of the Stuttgart footballers, when the whole club celebrates the happy end of a comeback, which ends at 3:3 instead of 0:3 – and then realizes that modern football is ahead – no, behind! – the emotions that VAR set. Just “Ironic”.
VfB coach Sebastian Hoeneß said he also “celebrated very emotionally after the third goal” after this mountain ride with the gondola crashing: “Also because I had the feeling that it was very deserved and that it was important for us as a team would have been to get this reward.” That’s how it would have worked out for his team, which turned a 3-0 deficit against Eintracht Frankfurt into a 3-3 draw (90th + 7) at the very last second and left the stadium had transformed into a single cheering and screaming mass. Except that shooter Chris Führich was actually a few centimeters offside before his shot. So: review and cancellation by the VAR. Justice, say its supporters. What his opponents said on Sunday cannot be quoted.
After all, after the initial anger, there was a lot of pity and sympathy for the Stuttgart team. After all, they were overwhelmingly superior in the first half, but missed chance after chance, including a penalty. And that’s why they were behind after 45 minutes: After a corner from Omar Marmoush, Hugo Ekitiké headed the ball into the net to give Frankfurt the lead at the break, a perfect co-production by the successful Frankfurt duo, who together have already scored 16 goals this season. After the restart, Nathaniel Brown made it 0-2, before Marmoush made it 0-3 with a great free kick from 20 meters – it was the exact double of his winning goal on Thursday in the Europa League against Slavia Prague, which even impressed his coach Dino Toppmöller astonished. “To be honest, I thought it was a bit too far away and the goalkeeper was too good,” said Toppmöller. He stood too. The shot was still unstoppable.
Stuttgart striker Demirovic might have scored a hat-trick on another day
Now a 3-0 deficit elsewhere means that the home team is up. It was different for VfB, who, in their rage, shot at the crossbar, the goalkeeper and the Frankfurt defender before discovering the lock and key principle. First, Joshua Vagnoman reduced the score to 1:3 in the 86th minute and after Woltemade made it 2:3 in the final minute of regular time, there was no one left in the stadium. When Führich actually scored the supposed 3-3 deep in stoppage time, all the dams broke. The rest was VAR. And the ritual search for a “why”, which wasn’t so easy that evening.
What did you want to accuse VfB of other than the self-accusation often heard on Sunday that they had handled their own chances too sloppily? Ermedin Demirovic noted ruefully that “if things went well, he would have scored a hat-trick.” But it didn’t go well. Although: Even his missed penalty, which may not have been entirely irrelevant for the continuation of the game, was well saved rather than unacceptably badly shot.
In general, Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp was in a good mood that evening. And like his entire team, he showed a level of cleverness and efficiency that made third place in the table not necessarily seem like an insignificant “snapshot” (sports director Markus Krösche). All Hoeneß had to say was that they “didn’t show the necessary efficiency for such a top game”: “But I saw a team that fought endlessly and created chance after chance.” He also saw a team that was superior in terms of play for a long time and was physically at his best for 97 minutes despite the triple stress from various competitions – the latter also applied to opponents Frankfurt.
They still have a problem in Stuttgart, not in the DFB Cup and not in the Champions League, where things are going well. But the moderate crisis in results in the league can no longer be explained away. Last season they were second at the end of the season, but – curse of a good deed – eleventh place is a very negative result this year. Especially since VfB also played weaker games, at least against Freiburg, Hoffenheim and Leverkusen. Internally, looking at the table will probably hurt anyway, after all, after last season, VfB surprisingly quickly became the top team again in terms of self-perception.
But Stuttgart doesn’t need pressure from outside at the moment. Coach Hoeneß is already doing this himself: “We don’t have enough points. It is also very clear that we have a duty against Bochum.”