VfB Stuttgart 07/08 Thread [R]

[nekkibasara]

I have a hard tim believing that Stuttgart will make it out of this group. They really needed to take maximum points from both of their matches against Rangers to have a chance of pipping Lyon. Now I'm not too sure.

[fanOfBayern]

All the German teams lost in their opening games..
Too bad. IMHO, only Bremen have a fair chance now..They should make it to the next round..
Schalke blew it by losing to Valencia at home..I don't know if they can beat Chelsea/Valencia away.
Stuttgart should really have won at Ibrox..No chance of beating Lyon to the second place..

["Eisenfuß" Eilts]

I have a hard tim believing that Stuttgart will make it out of this group. They really needed to take maximum points from both of their matches against Rangers to have a chance of pipping Lyon. Now I'm not too sure.

Too give some hope, in 2003/04 VfB also started with a 1-2 lost at Rangers
and won the next match at home against Manchester United
and in the end survived the group.

[nekkibasara]

Too give some hope, in 2003/04 they also started with a 1-2 lost at Rangers
and won the next match at home against Manchester United
and in the end survived the group.

I hope they can repeat that feat. I think it all rests on the team's injuries subsiding. Much like Bremen, they are hampered by key players being absent.

For those who saw the game how did Gomez play?

[F96]

I hope they can repeat that feat. I think it all rests on the team's injuries subsiding. Much like Bremen, they are hampered by key players being absent.

For those who saw the game how did Gomez play?

Efficient.
He had one good scene and scored.

["Eisenfuß" Eilts]

I hope they can repeat that feat. I think it all rests on the team's injuries subsiding.

But today it had IMO more to do with inexperience in CL.
They felt to save after the 1-0 lead and some players stopped working.

It´s good, that this was an away matches, because the home matches are crucial,
there you must collect points.

[Borussia]

Can't understand why they suddenly lost the game control after they took the lead! :eek: It seems they felt too save ... and got careless. :rolleyes: Finally, this attitude was rightly punished by a mediocre, but brave Rangers team ...

The result and game development reminds me of 2003, so you can really call it a "Dèjà Vu"! It seems that Stuttgart simply can't get something in Glasgow (3rd defeat in a row there)...

It's gonna be very tough now to go through this group.


Here's the match report with statistics:

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/chleague/spielrunde/spielpaarungsbericht/object/825196

[nanni]

come on guys it still can be done its hard yes but its still early...lets not falter!!

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

I'm really sad about this :(

Thankfully, 3 hours after the game ended, i'm now drunk as well and i don't think i'll feel crappy until tomorrow when i'll be be dissappointed about my sides result and my headache.

[Dead Fingers]

I'm really sad about this :(

Thankfully, 3 hours after the game ended, i'm now drunk as well and i don't think i'll feel crappy until tomorrow when i'll be be dissappointed about my sides result and my headache.

I'm sorry bro. :o

Plenty of time and games to get this back in order.

[VfBOmaha]

Well...what can we say...the loss is a bitter pill to swallow, but I feel like we can recover. I think we took the 1-0 deservedly and after that our boys played a bit flat footed, especially in the defense. I could see the first goal coming from a mile away as Hutton dribbled across the front of our penalty area. The penalty for the second goal was deserved. Our defense just reacted too slowly on the night.

I guess the key thing to consider, as others have already said, is that we have some young players out there who don't have experience on the big european stage. Once they get comfortable and play like any competitive Bundesliga game, we can win! I feel confident our teamwork is good and our individual talent is good enough.

[Duncan Idaho]

Honestly, I think the loss was fully deserved. After a rather good start in the first minutes Stuttgart gradually got worse and worse in their organisation on the pitch, their passing and in their ability to win decisive duells. The lead came out of nowhere and probably many thought Stuttgart will have it easier against a defensive Rangers formation from that point on, but Stuttgart rather got careless than better after their lead. So well done the equalizer by Glasgow may have been, so miserable has been the defense organisation by Stuttgart in this situation since there were the possibilities to stop this attack by a tactical foul on Hutton. The penalty by Meira was even more utterly stupid, since I highly doubt Meira's foul was necessary at all. After the 2:1 Stuttgart finally gave up and wasn't able to react properly

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Both goals were terribly unnecessary.

On Rangers's equalizer both Tasci and Osorio should've done better in stopping the Rangers player from getting a shot in, and the penalty for the 2-1(which was one of those 1000% penalties) was completely stupid by Meira, not something i'd expect from our captain and most experienced player in Europe. Had he not fouled, i don't believe Rangers would've been able to get a shot in anyway. Furthermore Meira was lucky not to be sent off for that horrible foul.

The loss is all the more dissappointing by the fact that we played better for the whole first half, and scored the goal early in the second half, and after leading in the SECOND HALF, we threw it all away to not get even a single point. Completely unnecessary.

Looking a the other matches we will play: we should look to win at home to both Lyon and Rangers, then we should steal atleast a point from the two Barca games, and then we would probably still have to win in Lyon, which is possible, but incredibly tough. If we can achieve this, we would have around 10 points which i think would put us through. So we can definitely still qualify, but it's gonna be really tough and certainly things look worse for us now that we failed to win or even take a point from the Rangers game. But congratulations to Glasgow Rangers, they showed more fight than us and showed their greater experience in Europe.

Next game will be at home to Barcelona: obviously it will be very hard, i think we shouldn't be surprised to see ourselves with 0 points from the first two games, but if that's the case we shouldn't give up at that point because the Barca game is not one where we should be expecting to steal points. But i remember last Champions League campaign we lost our first game 2-1 away to Rangers, then beat Manchester United at hoem on the second day. Maybe we can do the same with Barca, who knows?

And after all, if we do get a victory, against all odds, we will be right up there and healthy again. Butt the goal will have to be to avoid losing the match, which will already be hard enough itself.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Player Ratings:

Raphael Schaefer: Made numerous brilliant saves throughout the game, and did really well in my opinion. Can't be blamed for either goal(though i wish he would finally save a penalty for the first time in his career), but had a brilliant game on the whole. My Rating: 2

Arthur Boka: Did ok, not at fault for either of the major goals, though also failed to help much on the right side going forward. an average game by him. My Rating: 4

Fernando Meira: Played good for large periods of the game, in the first half he was defensively dominant, but he can't be excused for that horrible foul that ultimately lost us the game. I hoped for more from our captain. My Rating: 4.5

Serdar Tasci: Looked totally out of sorts. Made numerous bad mistakes in the first half and didn't look comfortable on such a big stage just yet. also he should've done better on the 1-1 equalizer, but overall it was a bad game by him in every respect, i don't remember ever seeing him play so bad. My Rating: 5.5

Ricardo Osorio: Like Boka, was ok for large periods of the game, looked comfortable even at this level and even helped a bit in attacks.But it was not a brilliant game by him by any means, and he should've done much better to prevent the attacker from shooting on Rangers's 1-1 equalizer. My Rating: 4

Pavel Pardo: Not a good game by him, nowhere near as commanding as he can be during the Bundesliga matches and even he was prone to too many false passes yesterday. My Rating: 4

Roberto Hilbert: Like in the Cottbus game, was very active and i felt easily our most creative midfielder. I felt he played a good game on the whole, especially compared to his teammates. Made less errors than the other midfielders. My Rating: 3.5

Sami Khedira: Made false pass after false pass. Simply so many errors it was unbelievable, though he did vindicate himself slightly by giving the cross that would lead to our 1-0 lead. It is better than nothing. My Rating: 4

Toni da Silva(or "Antonio", as the uefa champions league people called him): A very bad game by da Silva, he was the instigator of most false passes and errors in the midfield, and was responsible for virtually no good creativity in the whole time he was on the pitch. too foten he gifted the ball to the other side. My Rating: 5

Cacau: Was dangerous over large periods of the game and i think he did quite well, especially considering the little servie he got. His bicycle kick was the most memorable of his moment but he also had many other good runs down the side and created problems for the defense. My Rating: 3

Mario Gomez: Always dangerous. Made errors and missed a big chance early in the first half, but ultimately he was there at the right place at the right time to score us the 1-0, just as you'd expect him to be. My Rating: 2.5

SUBS:

Basturk and Ewerthon: Not going to rate them, but if i did, both would be very low. Both were completely invisible after coming in.

[MicFW]

Hmm, I can't agree with the "Stuttgart played crap and deserved to lose" tenor of some posts.
I thought the first 15-20 minutes were really impressive, Stuttgart made Rangers look completly helpless on their own turf. After that, the game was open. The shooting was awful the whole 90 minutes, and the passing got worse as well, but it's not like the home team had more to offer. A draw or even an away win would not have been undeserved.

Meira's foul was incredibly stupid, made him look very clumsy. To be honest, I think his mistake might be decisive. Rangers are arguably the weakest team in the group, and you can't afford to waste a game that was there for the taking.
Now three points against Barca are needed, and I doubt that this will be possible. Hopefully, your team will prove me wrong.

[Borussia]

Don't know why Meira always needs such stupid & dirty fouls lately! :rolleyes:

[footyfan1]

Don't know why Meira always needs such stupid & dirty fouls lately! :rolleyes:

I agree with that. When he gets frustrated, he is dangerous to the opposition. I think the BL referees really need to look out for this guy.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Huge game today away to Bremen but since im in Sheffield now and have to get busy settling in here i wont be able to watch the game.

Its a shame but ill still be keeping track of the score. Gomez might miss the game. A loss for us would put us far, far behind so it is reallz not wanted, however unfortunately i would say we are the favourites to lose at this point.

The boys need to stand back on their feet after the CL loss, and if we can take points from this game, thatll be a good way to do so.
Latest results on the road in Bremen:

06/07 Bremen 2 - 3 VfB
05/06 Bremen 1 - 1 VfB
04/05 Bremen 1 - 2 VfB
03/04 Bremen 1 - 3 VfB(i believe)

so.... we can definitely have hope for points atleast :)

[THOMA GOL]

:mad:down 2-0 in just under five minutes. Not a good start:mad:

[VfBOmaha]

horrible start...but finally a breakthrough...2-1

13' Gomez