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.

But that’s much further down the road, friends. Let’s focus on tonight. One can never be sure what side Babbel will field, but with Cacau injured and Ciprian Marica picking up a slight knock over the weekend (groin) I’d be surprised to see anyone other than Schieber and Pogrebnyak up front. Osorio, Träsch, and Khedira will also be unavailable with injuries. Here’s what Babbel had to say ahead of the critical trip to Spain:

“The game against Bayern gave us a bit of a boost. We were solid at the back, didn’t allow them to create many chances and, at the same time, managed to forge some openings of our own. If we can play that way against Sevilla, and maybe repeat the sort of performance we put in during the home game against them two weeks ago, then we have the class needed to take something positive back to Stuttgart from Spain with us.”

Right on brotha. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was most encouraged by the backline play against Bayern more than anything else. If Stuttgart can put it all together, that kind of defense and the same attacking style they put in against Sevilla last time, we may have something here. Stuttgart’s biggest problems last time were man marking with set pieces and other balls sent into the box. They were beaten by two headers and a poor goalie blunder. Fabiano was essentially invisible last time around and it’s got to be the same today too.

I’d like to see a little more of this again too- comment before, during, and after the match. I’ll be around-

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.

The last time Stuttgart and Sevilla hooked up was in the Europa League last year where Sevilla promptly dispatched Die Schwaben 2-0. Sevilla have only added to that squad with Brazil’s Fabiano, who is sehr gut to say the least. He did not figure into Sevilla’s loss over the weekend after WC break due to WC qualifier fatigue. But he’ll be back and ready to go in this affair. However, Sevilla will be w/o their starting goalie Palop, as well as defender Konko, midfielder Renato, and Negredo. With this in mind it’s really Stuttgart’s best chance to steal a result. Make no mistake they are heavy underdogs, playing like crap all year against a team that has only excelled. And Babbel, ever the optimist, feels this works in their favor:

“We are better off not being the favourites because now we have nothing to lose, we can only win. I feel that the team is willing, ready to give everything.”

One would hope they would embrace being expected to win. But I digress-

So here’s hoping to taking advantage of a weakened Sevilla squad, and, you know, maybe rallying around home pitch advantage for once. Please post before, during, and after the match and I’ll surely be blogging live with whoever wants to as well.

I don’t want to dissect the game too much; thanks very much to everyone who posted in the rant box for this exact reason. I’ll be looking to continue to do that in the future and hopefully we can get more comments before, during, and of course after the match. Here’s just a couple of the glaring points I noticed as well as some of you mentioned out there as well.

-Blown chances: Each of these past two games Stuttgart could have easily scored 2 or 3 goals and put the game out of reach before there was even a chance of a tie.

-Lack of killer instinct: This ties into the last point but cannot be stressed enough. Stuttgart seem content to sit on their hands after scoring the first goal, and as was aptly pointed out, are not a particularly good team defending a one goal lead. They’ve time and again shown us that. Not only that, but if you’re going to go with this strategy, it’s in your best interest to try and control ball possession a bit more! Sloppy passing and a defensive mentality gifted Urziceni far more possession than one would’ve liked to see. Stay on the offensive, score the 2nd goal, and put the contest out of reach.

-Shoddy defense: Stuttgart clearly had the brunt of scoring chances, but one could argue that Unirea had plenty of their own VERY good opportunities to score a few themselves. There were a few chances on crosses and set pieces that the ball was not cleared out and with a better touch could have been easily been put in the back of the net. And of course on the equalizer, a terrible clearance that ultimately cost Stuttgart all 3 points. I like how Boka presses forward and he’s shown how dangerous he can be on crosses and even on long range efforts, but by and large we really need to shore up the back four.

I’ll reserve blame on Babbel for now, but as has been pointed out I am getting a bit concerned with squad selection and tactics overall. Also not to be overlooked, it’s his job to keep the team motivated and one can’t place the blame squarely on his shoulders for the complete lack of killer instinct and overall lack of toothless play, but he certainly is the headpiece of the squad and if a confidence and winning aura emanates from him it would surely breed a similar feeling down to the players as well. It’d be nice to see a bit more of that from the captain, too.

I leave you with the comments of Babbel and a video summary of the match. Big match this weekend, look for a preview in the next day or two.

“We dropped two points here tonight. We gave away the goal that we conceded far too easily and we were bitterly punished for our lapse. Unfortunately we failed to make use of a number of the chances we created. In the first half we were too passive and dropped back too deeply after we’d gone in front. I remarked upon that during the break and things did go better in the second half. The lads are really not used to playing every three days but we’re working on that. We still have everything in our own hands and that’s a good position to be in.”

It cannot be overstated how important this game is for Stuttgart if they are to advance to the knockout stages. You’ve got to figure that they will need to take a few points away from Rangers and Sevilla and pretty much ALL the points away from Unirea. Sometimes easier said than done. While Urziceni are undoubtedly the underdog in the group they’ll be looking to make a splash as well and they looked threatening at times against Sevilla even though they lost. But let’s hope Stuttgart can build on the success from the weekend and take all three of these much needed points.

I’d like to see Pogrebnyak and Schieber up front together tonight in attack. Hleb will again be out as well as the long term usuals (Magnin, Lanig.) I’d assume Lehmann is set to go again as well too.

As you can see I’m calling this a rant box more than a CL preview – comment throughout the game and I’ll be looking to comment/reply often and keep it interactive. UP Stuttgart

Some things to look out for:

-Hleb picked up a knock during the Hamburg game and is having muscle tightness issues that could leave him out of the Rangers clash. According to VfB’s official site he’s in serious doubt for tomorrow, though injury reports/speculation can sometimes be misleading.
-Magnin tore a muscle in his thigh during practice on Monday and it looks like he’ll be out for a couple of weeks.

Here’s my predicted XI for the match given the injuries and everything else:

Lehmann
Träsch Tasci Delpierre Boka
Gebhart Khedira Hitzlsperger Kuzmanovic
Pogrebnyak Cacau

I’d like to see VfB control the tempo of this game from the onset; to make a statement at home and to mark their intent early in the group. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to dispatch of a Rangers side rife with financial woes and with little in the way of international talent and praise. Pedro Mendes will however be one to look out for on their side. I’m especially keen to see Pogrebnyak do well, who was co-top scorer in the UEFA cup in 2007-2008 and has shown an ability to step up in European competition.

Traditionally, Rangers don’t play well away from home in Euro competition and I’m hoping that there will be some semblance of familiarity and confidence having faced them 2 years prior even though the squad has changed a bit. Make no mistake, Rangers are the underdog in this match.

Prediction: Stuttgart 2 Rangers 1

In:
Matthias Schwarz (21yrs old, free transfer)
Zdravko Kuzmanovic (21yrs old, €8 mil)
Pavel Pogrebnyak (25yrs old, €4.8 mil)
Stefano Celozzi (20yrs old, €2.5 mil)
Alessandro Riedle (18yrs old, €150k)
Aliaksander Hleb (28yrs old, on loan, €2 mil)


Call ups:
Funk, Schieber, Didavi







Out:
Mario Gomez (24yrs old, €30 mil)
Danijel Ljuboja (31yrs old, free transfer)
Georges Mandjeck (20yrs old, on loan)


Sent down:
Manuel Fischer

If one does the math (I did) it’s easy to see that after all the transfers and everything else, Stuttgart still make out in the black up over €12 million. Not a bad haul considering the amount of talent brought in. Not only that, but those brought in are young players, some of which show a lot of promise and others who have already proven themselves on an international and big club level.

Keeping that in mind, I’m calling this transfer season a win, but just barely for now. The obvious monetary influx is a no brainer. They couldn’t have done much better than the haul they brought in for Gomez, unless the likes of Man City and Chelsea got into some sort of bidding war (I think his catestrophically awful less than average Euro 2008 turned a lot of those outside of Germany off to him.) It hurts that he goes to one of the biggest rivals in the Bundesliga but there was nobody else even coming close to matching that offer.

Until it’s proven that those who came in can consistently make up for all the goals Gomez put in and set up day in and day out, I don’t think one can call it a total victory yet. If the product on the field suffers, irregardless of the monetary influx, it can’t be a good thing. The litmus test will of course be the Champions League (survive and advance) and remaining in European contention in the Bundesliga for next year. If either one falters, I’d have to say it was a draw at best. Not only results wise, but monetarily too. The amount of money and exposure brought in for CL qualification cannot be understated.

But let’s remain optimistic. If everyone steps up to the plate like they’ve shown in the past then the team is taking a huge step in the right direction. Let’s hear your thoughts, and feel free to chastise/ridicule me if I’ve forgotten anything-