CL Match Preview: Rangers v. VfB Stuttgart

By: Pete | November 23rd, 2009

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Big game folks. Both teams’ Champions League lives are on the line with this one, and can only hope Sevilla sinks Unirea even though they have no real incentive to play hard other than pride.

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.