Big ups to Sebastian Rudy, who was a force to be reckoned with all night on the wing. He completely disrupted the Ranger’s flow and what they were trying to do. They started out in a 3-4-3 but it was pretty obvious early on that those 3 strikers would be backtracking most of the match. Credit Stuttgart, who looked incredibly shaky in their previous CL match and the symbol of composure in this one.

Stuttgart have played like this many times this year in the first half; lots of attacks. The biggest difference this time around was an early goal and perhaps a bit of good fortune. I wonder if Boyd had done a better job with that unmarked header late in the first half how things would have been different. Going into the locker room knotted up at 1 goal a piece is certainly a bit disheartening after a dominating display. But, as it were, they did not capitalize and Stuttgart went in with a lead. Perhaps it’s the break they never got all year. Literally, outside of that one chance, Rangers were completely shut down the rest of the game. ZERO shots in the second half. Three shots total. Rangers best chance the second half was shut down by staunch defense (Delpierre v Miller) and a quick turnaround by Lehmann to start the second goal. Once again Rudy had his hand in it with a beautiful cross and in-form Kuz headed home with power and intent. It’s amazing how much less stressful the ending stages of a match can be with a 2 goal lead. Here’s what Babbel had to say after the match:

“We played very well tonight. We were aggressive and willing to put in the leg work right from the start. I’m delighted the lads finally managed to reward themselves. We have a real final ahead of us now in Stuttgart. That’s exactly what we wanted. From number one to number eleven, and including the players who came on as substitutes, every individual player performed. I’d said to the team before the game that we can’t afford to doubt ourselves – I even had to ask myself if I had doubts! No, I know now – I don’t doubt!”

Let’s hope this renewed confidence is carried into the weekend domestically. Looking ahead in the Champions League it all comes down to one match: Wednesday, December 9th, in Stuttgart. Due to Unirea Urziceni’s fortunate break with a completely ridiculous Sevilla own goal, Stuttgart have to win outright to advance. As was mentioned in the comments perhaps this better suits Stuttgart though as they are a much different team when they have to attack versus sitting back and holding a tie.

Unirea have been fortunate throughout this competition, beneficiaries of THREE own goals, missed penalties, and other fortunate breaks. There was NO attacking intent by Unirea against Sevilla this past match. They took 5 shots (one on target) and held the ball for 26% of the match (26%!!!!!) Yet they come out with 3 points.

Anyways enough about that. It was wishful thinking hoping that Sevilla would help out Stuttgart in some way. At the end of the day destiny is still in our own hands. Win and you’re through, simple as that. Given how well the Stuttgart faithful traveled into Glasgow this past match I can only imagine the crowd noise and boost there will be playing a do-or-die match home in Stuttgart.

Two weeks from now. Can’t come soon enough.

Rangers were able to eke out a draw in Stuttgart weeks ago in their first match of the campaign. Stuttgart were overall a better side but faltered a bit, were not able to strike the decisive blow and Rangers ultimately played better and scored in the 2nd half. Here’s to hoping The Schwaben have learned from their first leg and plan accordingly.

While it’s never easy to play in Glasgow, they have shown chinks in their armor in this campaign with both Unirea and Sevilla winning outright. First and foremost Stuttgart MUST play with more composure than their last match in Seville. As you may recall the first 15 minutes of that match the entire team were a bundle of nerves and Sevilla capitalized quickly. Once they calmed down it was a far more equal matchup and realistically Stuttgart should have done better than a draw being up a man with 20 or so minutes remaining. But I digress. Here’s the key points to victory:

-Stay composed. We’ve already touched on this.

-Clean up the sloppy defensive mistakes. This should be a theme of theirs for the entire year as every game there’s a few moments where someone or the whole backline caves in. A momentary loss of concentration in this case can cause far greater detriment than just letting up a cheap goal against the flow of play. There’s no telling how big an impact this has psychologically as well.

-Health: Probably the biggest question mark is who will be fit to play. Tasci and Gebhart also made the trip and we’ll see if they’re able to shed their injury woes and play. Though to be honest I don’t even really want to see Gebhart suit up.

-Halftime adjustments: I don’t know if much has been said about this during the current campaign but there’s definitely been some great halftime adjustments and some woeful ones. Early on in the Champions League Stuttgart have looked the more dominant team throughout the first half but came out flat in the 2nd. Whether it was just poor motivation or an inability to counter the opponent’s adjustments is hard to say but has been alarming nonetheless. That being said his halftime adjustments against Sevilla last match were superb (though admittedly very very obvious, everyone was screaming for those 2 to come off.)

-Score. Please. Who will step up and add a clinical finish to their repertoire? We can only hope. The quality chance to score ratio has been woeful this year.

Friends, I don’t know about you but I’m a bit tired of these non-winning ways. September 26th, 2009 was the last time VfB Stuttgart won a match outright. That’ll be just shy of 2 months come Tuesday night when they battle in Ibrox Stadium. And far too long for a team that should be contending both domestically and advancing in Europe.

I’ll be on here posting throughout the match. Please share your comments or just blow off some steam before, during and after.

-I’ve never seen a team collectively look so overwhelmed as Stuttgart did even before the game started. Men of mettle they were not.

-And it showed with some truly erroneous passing and horrendous defense. Sevilla’s goal was far too easy. At that point it seemed like this could be an ugly, ugly day.

-After finally withstanding all that pressure to start the game the men stopped shaking as badly in their booties and tried making things happen. I like to follow online gamecast commentary while I actually watch the game, and I couldn’t have summed up Pogrebniak’s first attempt on goal any better than UK’s Yahoo! did, “A great chance for Pogrebniak from the edge of the box but his left footed shot flies over. That looked like the finish of a man with just three goals in 16 games for his club.” Ouch.

-Boka and Hleb seemed the only two on the pitch for Stuttgart that weren’t a complete bundle of nerves in the first half. Boka’s driving runs forward, the great chance in this game, and throughout the year have been one of the very very few positive points to take away so far this year.

-Going into halftime, my voice was sore screaming at Boulahrouz and Hilbert. Hilbert especially looked totally out of place on the pitch. Late tackles, a step behind everyone, errant passes, completely frustrating to watch.

-So as one can imagine I was delighted by Babbel’s changes at halftime, taking off both of them. I didn’t even care who was put in at that point, just happy that Babbel was making some positive adjustments at halftime, which haven’t always been true this year.

-Not so surprisingly Stuttgart played much better the 2nd half. Probably a combination of better personnel on the pitch and a bit more comfortable with the atmosphere and the situation. They were lucky to be only a goal down and still in this match at halftime.

-After some encouraging play from Stuttgart (Pogrebnyak’s shot off the crossbar, etc) things settled in a bit for both sides.

-Every so often a team just needs a break, call it a lucky break or whatever. But Duscher’s injury after Sevilla had already used all their subs was what Stuttgart needed to turn the tide a bit.

-And heeere we go. Kuzmanovic’s goal was pure class; pretty much an unstoppable shot. And now I’m going to sound like a completely ungrateful or greedy fan, whatever you want to call it. But I wanted more, and I expected more from Stuttgart. There were roughly 15 minutes left once Stuttgart drew level. Sevilla is down a man, the crowd has just been taken back a bit, now’s the time to turn the screws. And it looked good for a little while; Schieber’s streaking effort that went just wide would’ve been as nice a goal as any. But after that there wasn’t much. Sevilla were down to 10 men but you wouldn’t know it if you just looked at time of possession for that final 15. It kind of reminded me of last year’s CL semi-final between Chelsea and Barcelona. Chelsea were up a man and content to burn out the clock with a precarious 1-0 lead rather than put the game away. Barcelona dominated possession, down a man, IN LONDON, and got the one lucky break they needed to score and advance. Luckily that didn’t happen here today, and of course the circumstances weren’t nearly as dire but it felt reminiscent of that. And not only THAT, but it still took a touch of serious class to score that goal. It’s not like the chance was directly created from having an extra man. It was a shot from 25 yards out! Their defense wasn’t carved apart or anything of that nature. Maybe I just think we should have been able to do more with what we had.

At any rate what’s done is done and we’re still in this thing. Stuttgart sit in 3rd place 2 points behind Unirea and one point ahead of Rangers. With games against both we hold our fate in our hands. If we win out we’re through, simple as that.

Listen, I don’t care who you want to blame, whether it’s the players, the coaches, the person putting the team together, whatever. But at the end of the day, somebody will be held accountable, and more often than not it’s the manager who gets axed. A team isn’t going to fire its entire squad, simple as that. You can make the argument that Stuttgart ALWAYS look threatening and the onus is on the players to finish the job off. I think the most telling sign that it’s not completely Babbel’s wrongdoing is that they still play hard for him. Once the team quits on its manager, that is really always the decisive end but that hasn’t been the case here so far.

But, as was pointed out in the comments section, something has to give soon, right? This schedule doesn’t get any easier, with a game this weekend home against Bayern and then away to Sevilla midweek. Let’s say worst case they crap the bed against those two teams, or even after that against Borussia Monchengladbach away, a relegation zone squad. Something has to give. They’ve lost against the good, mediocre, and bad teams in all sorts of ways.

Last thing. As far as the “bad luck” card that people are trying to play, whether it’s players or coaches or whoever, gimme a break. GOOD TEAMS MAKE THEIR OWN LUCK. Simple as that.

That being said, last night was yet another example of two of Stuttgart’s most glaring deficiencies all year: defensive lapses and lack of finishing. Credit Sevilla for taking advantage of what few chances they had. Boulahrouz was straight up beaten on that first goal, plain and simple, and there’s no good excuse for it. The second goal, the real back breaker, was a horrible combination of goalie blunder and shoddy clearance. I felt up until this point there was a real chance of not only leveling but still being able to snatch all 3 points given the way Stuttgart were playing. And perhaps a bit of the wind was taken out of their sails at that point, and things got a little sloppy. The set piece third goal is evidence of this and put the final nail in the coffin, if there was any doubt.



So many great chances were set up throughout the match it’s hard to figure out where to begin, but the moral of the story is they weren’t taken full advantage of. I can’t even remember when it was, but Schieber had a golden opportunity after Cacau (?) sent him through. One touch too many later, and a left footed shot into a defender rather than a right footed shot on net, another opportunity was squandered. That being said, keep playing the kid, he looks promising. This is the kind of game Gomez would’ve had 2 goals and we probably would’ve come out with all 3 points. Speculation of course, but one can dream can’t he?

At any rate, there are a ton of positives to come out with from this game. If they play like that this weekend there’s no doubt they’ll come back with 3 points away vs Hannover. And it was touched upon in the comments section of the rant box, but Unirea’s sound beating of Rangers makes the group a bit more interesting. I’d like to think Rangers play a bit better next time (EDIT), away, and hopefully beat Unirea giving both teams 4 points. A draw at Sevilla gives us 3; worst case we still are stuck on 2 going into the final two games vs Rangers away and Unirea at home. Those last two matches become must win. Let’s say we win them (seriously.) 12 pts for Sevilla, 8 for us. At this point in time Sevilla will be through and, as most teams do when there’s nothing on the line, will draw back a little. It’ll come down to if Unirea or more likely Rangers can poach points off of Sevilla. So yes, it’s speculation, but for the most part our destiny is still in our own hands. You know, assuming we beat both Rangers and Unirea, which as has been shown isn’t a guarantee.

Last little note on the match. Élson’s goal was naaaasty. If this was a Lampard or Ronaldo or someone else beating the wall and putting it in the top left corner of the net from 30 yards out, it’d be a Sportscenter top 10 nominee and whatever other highlight reels for the week. Enjoy the clip of it below.

That’s it. I’d love to hear comments/feedback or whatever else anybody has to say on the match.

There are times when you face an opponent who plain and simple outplays you. I think Pizarro’s early goal took the proverbial wind out of Stuttgart’s sail. That being said, there are some glaring concerns that Stuttgart need to deal with. It’s the same old story every week.

There’s clearly a lack of inspiration on the Stuttgart side, which is sad considering the position we’re in playing at the highest level of European competition in addition to domestic and cup competitions. All top flight players gravitate towards teams that are playing in all major competitions. But Stuttgart seem to lack that competitive edge and drive that was so evident in their run last year. It’s clear that Babbel’s installation last year sparked the team with a wonderful late run that put them in the position they’re in this year. But clearly his motivating tactics have worn thin on the players because they aren’t playing with that same drive from only a year back.

There’s also certainly a problem with the overall makeup of the team. Perhaps the personnel is just not right for the tactics Babbel is trying to employ, at which point you have to ask yourself, do we blame the players for not being able to make the grade, or do we blame the manager for not adjusting his gameplan to the strengths that the present squad has? He’s certainly rotated enough players in and out, trying to find some apparently mystical combination of midfielders and strikers to make the offense click. It just hasn’t been there, at least not yet. As one reader suggested, maybe we’re just lacking that creative central midfielder that more successful teams have. Hleb is out, and his return is apparently unclear. And while I certainly agree that it’d be nice to have that, it’s not like we lost a big presence like that in the midfield last year like Werder lost Diego. We did, however, lose the consistent goal scoring threat that we’ve always been able to rely on, and that’s certainly a part of the problem.

Anyways, I don’t think there’s much more to say at this point that isn’t just more speculation and grumbling. We all know the struggles and unfortunately it’s something that the team just needs to battle through.