A competition of stupidity

By: Anna | May 11th, 2008

For someone who is not a fan of any of the teams involved it must be quite a funny picture: Hamburg, Leverkusen and Stuttgart really, really want to play in the UEFA-Cup, but keep stumbling over their own feet, while Wolfsburg, who nobody had expected to do this well, are slowly sneaking their way to the international spots.

On a second thought, it reminds a little of the title race last season.

It seems to be a competition. Which club can make the most mistakes and still end up in the top five?
Theoretically everything is still possible. Four clubs with the same number of points, four clubs who could theoretically make it. Thanks to the lousy goal difference of exactly zero, Stuttgart is the last of those and depends on at least two of the remaining three clubs to make a mistake while they win – or they could score fifteen goals in one match, overtake both Wolfsburg and Hamburg and secure the Torjägerkanone for Mario Gomez. But that’s not going to happen.

Before I get to the match itself, I’m going to show myself just as superstitious as Armin Veh was last season: Every time I tried to anticipate what to expect from the next match, summed up the injuries and wrote what was to be expected should Stuttgart actually win, they lost.

So from now on I might include the usual injury news in other posts, but apart from that I won’t lose one word on expectations or upcoming matches. No word until the match is over.

As for the match against Wolfsburg itself, I’m not a fan of making one single person responsible for a result. Football is a team sport and when a whole team doesn’t play good, picking one person to take the blame isn’t the right method.
With yesterday’s match against Wolfsburg, things are a little different: The first goal was a combination of an insecure keeper and an inner defence that wasn’t able to get the ball out of the penalty area. But how can a keeper not be insecure when he’s constantly being criticised by the press, booed by the fans and the coach doesn’t say one word to support him, either?

Fernando Meira leaves the pitch after his third red card this season Anyway, the match was practically over in the 20th minute, when Fernando Meira was sent off. Grafite pulled his jersey and Meira returned the favour by taking his elbow to his opponent’s face. True that this is not necessarily a red card, true that Grafite showed an oscar-worthy performance of the dying swan, true that Meira was being provoked before.

But this is already the third time he was sent off this season and I suppose everyone remembers the ugly scene from the DFB-Cup final last season (by the way, with a total of six sending-offs, Meira has overtaken both Berthold and Bordon in the eternal card statistics and is now officially the one Stuttgart player with the most anger-management issues).

During the course of last season I’ve developed more and more doubts whether Fernando Meira is really the right person to captain this team. Partly because he has lost his temper a few times too often and partly because he hasn’t quite shown the leading qualities one should have in such a position.

The rest of the match is nothing I want to spend too many words on. It was the result of a team that lost its nerves and its captain and somehow wasn’t able to put as much spirit into playing as it was necessary when you’re playing a direct competition for the international spots.

These things happen and they especially love to happen to Stuttgart, who have a tradition of losing international spots in the last few match days and who always play a lousy season after they’ve achieved something great the year before. It’s our curse, I suppose.

However, they still have a chance. But not one I’d put too much hope into.