To leave the relegation places before the end of the season, VfB Stuttgart has brought itself to Iberian help. The training camp in Spain hopes to have left the Bundesliga penultimate with a kind of “spirit of Marbella”, in Portuguese Tiago Tomas came a Champions League-proven offensive player of Sporting Lisbon.
But is the rich? The ease of strong preseason, when the VfB mixed the Bundesliga as a newcomer, is a heavy weight, which seems to pull him deeper into the spreadsheet for weeks. The crass contrast shows itself in many areas, and not all can only be explained with injury and corona unlucky.
The scorer
The fact that the VfB has been waiting for a goal for 478 minutes to a goal, is only the escalation of what has burdened him since the beginning of the season: the eleven of coach Pellegrino Matarazzo is threatening harmless compared to 2020/21. The strategy, the months injured SASA Kalajdzic (16 goals / 7 assists in the preseason) and Silas (11/3) as well as the sold Nicolas Gonzalez (6/3) to recapture with the next talent generation (Klimowicz, Coulibaly, Massimo), Went not as expected.
The VFB only comes to 1.1 instead of 1.7 goals per game, the best scorer are the defenders Constantinos Mavropanos and Marc Oliver Kempf (now Hertha). Kalajdzic, which was even more effective with an “Expected Goals” difference of +0.21 in the past season than Robert Lewandowski currently (+0,15) – so tend to be much more out of his chances than statistically expecting – only 3 needed, 4 shots per goal.
Nobody knew this huge gap even close to close, not the 18-year-old Wahid Faghir, who was worth 3.5 million euros to VfB and the far away from it is to be a reinforcement. Omar Marmoush, who in addition to Mavropanos currently best VFB scorer (2/3), missed five games injured and more through his Africa Cup participation. And at Daniel Didavi (4/4 in the preseason), some fan wonders if it would not have been better, instead of offering Gonzalo Castro a new contract instead of him.
The center
Wataru Endo belonged 2020/21 in some areas to the best of the Bundesliga – this year he let. relegation places
What arrives at the front will be prepared in the back – and there is also significant in the VFB. In Matarazzo system, the six comes to build the game and dissolve vertically. But because Wataru Endo and his somewhat offensive partners Orel Mangala did not link to their performance from the preseason, the team is heavier, Matarazzo’s game idea.
The smeary captain is just tired: After his Olympia-conditioned short summer break, ENDO, one of the Bundesliga-wide best on its position 2020/21, not only in baller conversions (8.99 instead of 9.97) or intercepted balls per Game (4.97 instead of 5.26) deteriorates, but also in spatial-winning vertical passports (6.53 instead of 7.79) or dribblings (success rate 64 instead of 75.5 percent). The same thing can be observed at Mangala, which was sometimes missing months.
The goalkeeper
Gregor Kobel held more balls in the preseason, as a statistically awaited. With Florian Müller it is 2021/22 vice versa. relegation places
And even between the posts the VfB quality lost. Although nobody had expected that Florian Müller, who expensive with five million euros, forgot new entry, Gregor Kobel immediately forgot, but so far, the ex-Freiburg even undercut the statistics: Kobel had to accept even less goals than expected the opposing degrees (1, 55 instead of 1.7), it is reversed in Müller (1.64 instead of 1.47). That means: “Impossible” hardly holds Müller.
The standards
Although Mavropanos and Kempf, the striker so far put in the shadows, the VFB has clearly mined in the resting balls. From 0.53 standard devices per game, the sixth value of all Bundesligavers 2020/21, were 0.3 – these only undercut Wolfsburg and Bielefeld (0.2 each). At the same time, the standards of the opponents were slightly more successful (0.45 instead of 0.41).
The conclusion
That the VfB could face an uncomfortable season, the responsible persons had guessed in the summer. Finally, the economic restrictions had impossible to equalize the quality losses just in the offensive. Because at the same time the talents were not as far as hoped, new additions disappointed and power carrier degraded, the VFB – accompanied by constant injury and corona setbacks – has fallen into a downward spiral, at the end of which the next descent could be.
And yet there is hope: because Kalajdzic and Silas are increasingly resilient, because Tiago Tomas does not seem to be a scorer, but a game-strong new weapon; And because the crisis is not a question of commitment: The VfB has the third-wheelest mileage of the league, but that was already the same last season.
