What is and what should never be

Raphael Schäfer is not going to play in this season’s last match against Arminia Bielefeld.

After a match in Wolfsburg that was overshadowed by the red card for Meira and a disastrous performance of the inner defence (or actually the whole team, if I saw that correctly), Armin Veh decided to let nineteen year old Sven Ulreich take over the place between the goalposts for the second time this season. After saying just a week before that he’d definitely let Schäfer play the last two matches, because changing now would put Ulreich under a pressure he didn’t cause himself. Now he says: “he’ll surely make it. Ulreich is our coming man.”

Schäfer also was given the choice whether or not he wanted to take part in training for the last week and decided not to come. According to the Bild, he already said goodbye to the stewards at the training ground’s parking space, “we won’t meet again.”

This decision is logical considering his situation: While his team-mates never said one bad word about their goalkeeper, the fans won’t be quiet. Schäfer’s advisor Steffen Schneekloth talks about a “malicious campaign” against him, especially in some internet fan forums, and that it would not make sense to continue.

Today it says on the VfB’s website that the decision to take Schäfer out of the goal was made to protect him. Veh’s comment: “Raphael was not solely responsible for the loss in Wolfsburg. The whole team failed. But the pressure on his shoulders in the decisive match against Bielefeld would have been inhumane. That’s why I wouldn’t have put him into the goal under any circumstances.”

A pressure that he is not putting on the shoulders of a nineteen-year-old who needs a few more years of practice to be able to keep up with the Bundesliga. But at least Ulreich will be welcomed back by the fan base instead of booed, like it constantly happened to his colleague.

Heldt also joined that opinion: “Also in professional sports one may not forget the human component. Raphael Schäfer had a difficult start, but sadly he also wasn’t able to constantly access his full potential.”
How, one might ask, when the team he played with was shaken by one injury after the other, when the inner defence was either out of their mind or got sent off (remember that Delpierre is not a saint either), when the fans were against him from the very beginning and the club’s officials failed to ever show their support for him. While Veh only talked positively about Ulreich, even when he took him out of the goal after Leverkusen again, he never said a word about Schäfer’s qualities until now.

He also added that it is „irresponsible“ to let all of the frustration “focus on one single person.”

The kicker writes today that Schäfer is released from work and that the VfB is looking for chances to sell him, despite a contract for three more years. The only club that seems interested is his former employer, the 1. FC Nürnberg, this however could only happen if they manage to stay in the first league. At least there he could be sure of the support of their fans.

After some short-lived rumours about getting Hildebrand back from Valencia or Robert Enke, who doesn’t seem interested at all, the press now focuses on Jens Lehmann.

What happened to Raphael Schäfer this season is a tragedy. Stuttgart’s fans shamed themselves by not being able to forget about one action a year ago and by not accepting someone who should have become a part of the team they loved. But it also shows the inability of the club to protect their own goalkeeper better and to state publically that the goal difference that makes us seventh in the table is not to be blamed on one single person, but rather on a whole team.

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