Hope is our enemy… or not?

By: Anna | May 17th, 2008

Last week the VfB Stuttgart had retreated to a short training camp at Burg Staufeneck to be able to focus on the match against Bielefeld, which would decide whether this season would end as frustrating as it started, or if there would at least be the comfort of the UEFA-Cup.

The plan was to try out different options in replacing the injured (Tasci, Pardo, Marica) or otherwise indisposed (Meira, who has been banned for two matches) players without catching too much attention of press or fans. A plan that didn’t quite work out, since there were roughly a thousand people visiting the training.

[A side note on Meira: The DFB officials apparently don’t think the red card for him was justified and actually wanted to suspend him for one match only, but since he’s been sent off before this season, that is not an option. So he’ll miss next season’s first match as well, should he still play at Stuttgart then. I doubt a ban from the DFB would also count in Serie A.]

There was, despite everything, hope. Hope that Hamburg or Leverkusen would continue the downward trend of the last weeks, or that Wolfsburg would stumble before the finish line.

Bielefeld’s coach Frontzeck said before the match that a 0:1 was everything they dreamed of, and as opposed to the dreams of Stuttgart’s fans this one seemed to be fulfilled when Robert Tesche scored after a free kick following a ridiculous dive (no, this one truly was a joke).

The team was confused, instable, missing the leaders (apart from the aforementioned, Thomas Hitzlsperger was missing as well, so that Matthieu Delpierre ended up captaining the team).

But even if that goal hadn’t happened, with Hamburg leading against Karlsruhe, Wolfsburg scoring in Dortmund and Leverkusen playing 0:0 against Bremen, things looked bad for an international competition at half-time.

After the break, there was a little more movement from Stuttgart, but not enough effort to turn the match. With Magnin’s substitution for Boka and Hitzlsperger (finally) coming for Hilbert, Stuttgart managed to get a little more drive towards the right direction, but always missing the last moment, the final chance.

Until Manuel Fischer, 19-year old home grown striker talent from Stuttgart’s youth came on to the pitch in minute 72., got fouled about fifteen minutes later and got a penalty (I’d say that it was a deserved penalty, but I’m a biased Stuttgart fan. But if it wasn’t, it made up for the free kick that led to the 0:1).

Stuck in front of my own computer, refreshing the live scores so often that it crashed my browser a few times, I was trying to figure out whether that match would reflect the season, no matter how it ended.
A frustrating season, starting badly, coming back to hope a few times until realising in the end that it just wasn’t enough.
Or a frustrating season which then seemed to get better, despite some setbacks, only to end with nothing because a few, deciding chances weren’t used.
Or a season with a horrible start, with a lot of backstrokes, but then the team got better and better and learned from past mistakes and in the last minutes, they ended up with more than anyone had expected.

Since Pardo, the usual penalty-taker of Stuttgart, was out with injury, Mario Gomez had to step up. But he used this one, the probably last chance. Shortly after, Markus Rosenberg scored the leading goal for Bremen against Leverkusen (the goal for Stuttgart fell in the 85., the one for Bremen in the 80. minute, but either one match was a little delayed or something went wrong with the ticker).

Actually the leading goal by Manuel Fischer in minute 85 and Eigler’s equalizer two minutes later didn’t change anything (in terms of table placement, not in terms of winning or not), but it’s again very symbolic: Suddenly remembering where their true qualities are, being able to finally finish in front of the goal (thanks to a player from the own youth) and then being just a bit too unfocused to derive a benefit from it.

The UEFA Intertoto Cup is something people love to joke about. It’s the last straw for clubs which weren’t smart enough to qualify for a decent tournament, it’s something to keep people entertained when there’s no other football to watch. It may be a tiny little better than qualifying for the UEFA-Cup via fair-play, but that’s all.

It’s just exactly that for Stuttgart. The one last hope to make something positive from this frustrating, disappointing, horrible season.
But it’s also a success, a performance Stuttgart have never shown before, it’s one of the greatest achievements in club history: It’s the best placement this team has ever reached after winning the title.
And it’s only two matches against a team from Russia, Luxemburg or Georgia away from the UEFA-Cup, most probable clubs are FK Moskau, Etzella Ettelbrück and FC Zestafoni. Not what you’d call big names who have a history of international tournaments.

The VfB has a history: They’ve won the championship at least once a decade and played a horrible season afterwards. And once a decade they performed brilliantly in a European competition. They haven’t so far.

There’s a lot to expect from next season, then.

Apart from that, I am so glad this season is over I can hardly put it in words.