A quick roundup of things that happened over the break:

-Stuttgart players played zero part in Germany’s advancement over Russia. Cacau and Hitz warmed the bench and Tasci and Khedira (foot) were out. Pogrebnyak came on late for Russia looking for an equalizer.

-However, they did play in the garbage match game v. Finland (1-1 draw); Hitz until halftime, Cacau into the 2nd half.

-For all you German national team fans out there it’s easy for us to take for granted how often and with relative ease they advance through the WC qualifier rounds. Here’s a nice piece from Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger that touches on that point.

-Big ups to Julian Schieber who netted two for the under-21 squad v. Slovenia in a 3-0 win. Sebastian Rudy came on late and nearly scored as well.

-Yildiray Bastürk broke his thumb but should be ok as early as this weekend

Match preview a little later today-

So where does that leave the rest of the team? Have they nothing to do? Nonsense. While the starters are away, the reserves go and play. A friendly that is, vs the mighty “non-league” FV Altshausen. I think that says all you need to know. I know, as you might imagine, nothing about said squad. I did however find a team photo. But practice is practice and it’ll be good to get some of the non-regulars some work in.

Post any thoughts you have here on the team’s players and their international duties, or really anything else at this point. Fire away-

Stuttgart today announced the signing of Zdravko Kuzmanovic from Fiorentina to a 4 year contract. Spanish clubs Sevilla and Atletico Madrid were also reportedly interested in his services.

I think this is a solid signing; he should be able to slot in right away, and bolsters a midfield squad a bit light with Lanig injured. At only 22, he’s already got 20+ caps for the Serbian National Team and was a regular in the midfield for La Viola. It says something when teams like Sevilla and Atletico Madrid were going after him too. Always a good thing to add a younger player with international experience into the squad as well.

I can’t say I’ve ever been an avid Serie A fan and as such haven’t really seen him play as much as perhaps some of you others have. Any further insight would be great to hear but get excited folks, we’ve got a talented core with some up and coming younger players-

Here’s some thoughts from the man himself-

“I’m delighted that the move to VfB Stuttgart worked out so shortly before the end of the transfer period. VfB is a club with a long tradition, fantastic surroundings and a success-hungry team. I want to play my part in helping achieve their goals.”

And Herr Babbel-

“Zvravko Kuzmanovic is a modern midfielder. He has an exceptional reading of the game and is a strong tackler. Despite his young years, he has an impressive amount of international experience and that will surely help him integrate quickly into our team.”

It’s a strange thing that Stuttgart generally perform better against opponents that are at their level of football, but struggle against teams that actually shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe they’re underestimating the opponent, or it’s the difficulty to finish when the smaller team play with nine guys in their defence and one striker, I don’t know.

But fact is, the newly promoted team had promised to “play along” and they did, indeed.

Stuttgart played, compared to Thursday, with four changes: Hitzlsperger, Pardo, Boka and Delpierre came for Khedira, Bastürk, Lanig and Magnin. While one can’t necessarily blame it on the changes, fact is that there was a whole different team on the pitch.

The match started with two teams on par with each other, and both soon had their first chances: First Gomez had a very good opportunity to score in the eighth minute and only Gladbach’s Brouwers kept them from receiving an early goal, then striker Rob Friend found himself in a one vs. one with Lehmann, who showed an amazing reflex in diving down and touching the ball with the finger tips of one hand, making it miss the goal by only a few meters.

After a throw in at the height of Stuttgart’s penalty area, Gladbach’s captain Rösler had to leave the pitch for the treatment of a laceration under the left eye, apparently caused when Pardo’s elbow (who didn’t even see Rösler) hit him when they both jumped up for the ball.

Anyway, Stuttgart used the advantage of being in superior number when Ricardo Osorio focused the attention of four Gladbach players on himself, still managed to dribble past the midline and passed to Thomas Hitzlsperger, who scored the beautiful 1:0 from 25 metres away. It was one of those goals that make every TV commentator mention that back when he was playing for Aston Villa, he was nicknamed “the Hammer”, leaving keeper Heimeroth no chance.

Lehmann showed another great parade when Matmour, after some confusion in Stuttgart’s defence, had the chance to shoot on the goal without anyone holding him back. Nevertheless, Stuttgart was the more active and aggressive team and had quite a few good chances, for example when Jaures lost the ball to Jan Simak. Stuttgart’s midfielder passed it back to Marica, who had no problem scoring the 2:0 – after he missed the goal four minutes earlier from a similar position.

But Gladbach were close to scoring, too, especially when Lehmann ran out of the goal but couldn’t get the ball away from Friend, whose shot, in the second attempt, could only be cleared by Arthur Boka with a great deal of luck. Who knows if Stuttgart would’ve recovered from that goal.
But Stuttgart are still best when they play against an equally forward-minded team: in the 44th minute, Gladbach was far into Stuttgart’s half, when they lost the ball, and Mario Gomez took the chance of the fast counter-attack, tricking defender Brouwers, and scored the 3:0.

The first interesting scene in the second half was one for Gladbach, again, when Rob Friend again was left alone in front of the goal – the defence’s focus was on Marin – but Lehmann was able to defuse the situation without too much trouble.

All in all, Gladbach were having a better second half of the match, as illustrated by the higher amount of goal chances, while Stuttgart leaned back and tried to keep the score. First Boka had to clear the ball on the goal line for the second time in the match, but the following throw-in was quickly turned to the 3:1 final score by Rob Friend, who had been sorely neglected by the Stuttgart defence, and that not for the first time in that match.

The defending wasn’t too bad in general, though there were a few points where one could clearly see that they had to get used to the line up and though he surely didn’t play his best season last year, Fernando Meira left a gap that’s difficult to close, especially when his “replacement” Boulahrouz is injured as well.

One of the best moments for Gladbach was when Marin dribbled past Pardo and Tasci and only missed the goal by not even a metre. The goal had motivated the players again, and so Stuttgart weren’t having quite as much of an easy time as one could have expected after the first half – though one has to say that at least they didn’t stop playing after conceding one, a habit that the team occasionally has.

To sum it up, it was quite an interesting match with good chances for both teams, but with Stuttgart being a tad faster, more motivated and, as a consequence, luckier. The strikers seem to be in good shape, even though some of the chances could have been used better, the team seems eager to show a better performance than last year; only the defence is in need of some fine-tuning. But it might look completely different when Boulahrouz is fit to play again.

Ten players left Stuttgart for the various national team matches on Wednesday – Serdar Tasci is hoping to play his first match in the German national team’s jersey.

The next match against Bayer Leverkusen is next Saturday. Let’s hope the players don’t bring any injuries back home and that Boulah finally gets the chance to celebrate his comeback to the Bundesliga.

The idea is to extend training time and spend two, three hours on the place, without the players rushing home for lunch in-between and having to warm up twice a day.

“Effectively, we’ll have more training minutes per day”, is Veh’s reason to change the schedule.

Now, I don’t know if the new plan was used last week already, but either way, the team was, as expected, successful in the DFB Cup against Hansa Lüneburg. The VfB, playing without the injured Bastürk, Boulahrouz and Cacau, and Jan Simak, who had been red-carded in the last cup match with Carl Zeiss Jena and been banned for one match, started into the match eagerly, making it clear that losing was not an option. The quick 1:0 (Lanig, in minute 11) and the 2:0 by Hilbert, scored in the 26th minute, pointed in the right direction. However, in the first half it seemed as if Mario Gomez was in just the same shape as during the Euro: he missed a few ‘100 percent’ chances, one of which was the carbon copy of the missed chance against Austria that started the whole misery.

The second half-time started just like the first had ended, with a missed chance by Gomez (Armin Veh’s comment later: “Well, I have to admit it looked a little funny at some moments”). Every failed move was commented by the audience with cheering and ironic applause, but with two goals (58th and 79th minute) he showed that “nobody needs to worry about me”, as he said after the match. He may not be fully back to the shape of the footballer of the year 2007, but he’s on the way there.

The 5:0 (final result) then came as an own goal by Berger.

Next on the plan is the UEFA Cup qualification match against ETO Györ on Thursday. After the first Bundesliga match on Sunday, the players who have been called up for the national team squad are going to leave for the weekend.

Together with Thomas Hitzlsperger and Mario Gomez, Serdar Tasci is going to travel to Nuremberg. It’s not the first time he’s been called up, but until now he was injured every time he should have put on the DFB jersey. But now, he’s in great shape, even started training a whole week before his colleagues and is looking forward to the experience.

One player who is not going to join the team is Jens Lehmann, who now officially retired from the national team. I’m not going to get too detailed here, since Angela already wrote a piece about his decision at the world cup blog.

On a completely different note, what had been expected for months now finally happened, and Christian Gentner’s loan contract with the VfL Wolfsburg has been dissolved and he’s going to stay with the Wolves until 2010. I’ve never been happy with him leaving in the first place, but even I am forced to admit that for his career, it was the best decision, and that Stuttgart has enough midfielders to get along without him (if we aren’t struck by a flood of injuries, like last season, that is).