Still alive

By: Pete | November 5th, 2009

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Phew. CL Match day 4 came and went and Stuttgart have lived to talk about it. We saw a bit of everything in this game, much to discuss. I’m gonna take this one in bullet form as I wrote things down during the game.

-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.