VfB Stuttgart - Pushing for Europe, 08/09 Season Thread Part III (R)

[kaiser kraut]

A majority of the toughest matches remaining on our schedule are going to be played at home, so that makes me feel like we'll have a solid shot at gaining ground on the teams ahead of us.

As to the conversation about midfields. I think there is a bit of a cloud over our midfield from earlier in the season. To be honest, I think there is a lot of damaging perception from the utter disappointment in what Basturk has done, and I think general opinion is that the Simak signing isn't working out. Two guys, who are 30, who were supposed to be the missing piece in our midfields who have tanked. But I think there is excitement again because our form has improved and we're starting to see the potential Gebhart and Lanig, and even the improved role of Elson. It could even stem back to the departure of Pardo, with regard to perception.

As it is now, I'm not at all concerned. It's not like its a major problem area for us. If there were two things I could fix with a magic wand, I'd improve our LB and make somebody a consistently strong threat next to Gomez.

[Rainer24]

Well, Delpierre needs to get his ass healthy and in a hurry. Niedermaier is out with the goold old "Bandriss" now.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

If we're talking about areas to improve, then over the summer we should be looking into:

- Someone VERY good for the left wing, Elson, Simak even Lanig are all fairly good but not top 3-4 material.
-For the rightwing we may need someone as well, but i'm not as sure: if Hilbert finds his 06/07 form, he's an excellent winger, and in Gebhart we've got a real talent for the future.
- At left back - I would see: if Traesch can play well for the rest of this season i'd be happy to go in to next season with him and Boka as leftbacks. If Traesch doesn't do consistently well we'll need to buy someone new for the spot. But Traesch should definitely be in our plans regardless, out of Boka and Magnin, one of them should probably be sold. Since Boka just prolonged, i'm guessing it would be Magnin.
- At Rightback, i'd consider a new buy, since Osorio has had no competition for that spot at all since Beck(who by now would probably have became a starter here...) left.
- If Gomez left, we'd obviously need to try and find a new great striker. But i'm still hopeful that he'll stay.

Anyway, that's getting ahead of ourselves :)

Our defence could really look bad next week if Delpierre isn't fit. I'm crossing my fingers that he'll make it. In the worst-case scenario it'll look something like this:

Hilbert----Osorio----Boulahrouz----Traesch

Man that looks poor. Hilbert has played quite a few times at rightback and never really impressed. Osorio likewise has occasionally played in central defence but isn't nearly as good as on the rightback spot. Boulahrouz i'm always hoping will finally have one of his rock solid matches, but there have been only a few since he joined. And Traesch generally does pretty well when called upon, but obviously he's still a youngster.

In conclusion, hopefully Delpierre can make it back, then we'd have:

Osorio---Boulahrouz---Delpierre---Traesch

which would look quite a bit better.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Player Ratings:

Jens Lehmann: Kicker Rating: 3 (23 games played, 3.09 avg. rating)
My Rating: 3.5

Ricardo Osorio: KR: 3.5 (16 games played, 3.56 avg. rating)
MR: 3

Serdar Tasci: KR: 3 (22 games played, 3.34 avg. rating)
MR: 3

Georg Niedermaier: KR: 3 (2 games played, 3.00 avg. rating)
MR: 3.5

Christian Traesch: KR: 3.5 (8 games played, 6 as starter, 3.58 avg. rating)
MR: 3.5

Sami Khedira: KR: 4 (19 games played, 16 as starter, 3.12 avg. rating)
MR: 3.5

Thomas Hitzlsperger: KR: 4 (22 games played, 21 as starter, 3.45 avg. rating)
MR: 3

Roberto Hilbert: KR: 3.5 (20 games played, 15 as starter, 3.74 avg. rating)
MR: 3

Elson: KR: 3.5 (11 games played, 5 as starter, 3.71 avg. rating)
MR: 3

Ciprian Marica: KR: 5 (19 games played, 12 as starter, 4.08 avg. rating)
MR: 4.5

Mario Gomez: KR: 2.5 - Man of the Match (22 games played, 21 as starter, 3.27 avg. rating)
MR: 2 - Man of the Match

SUBS:

Cacau: KR: 4 (16 games played, 12 as starter, 3.79 avg. rating)
MR: 3.5

Jan Simak: KR: 4.5 (14 games played, 11 as starter, 4.12 avg. rating)
MR: 4

Khalid Boulahrouz: KR: No Rating (13 games played, 10 as starter, 3.82 avg. rating)
MR: 3.5

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Babbel just changed our season-goal to be direct qualification to the Champions League :eek:

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/artikel/505764/

Sure can't question the guy's ambition.

[Rainer24]

Well, why not? We can basically get there just by winning our own games. Why not shoot for it when you are only three points back and have everyone you need to beat on the schedule?

[footyfan1]

Well, why not? We can basically get there just by winning our own games. Why not shoot for it when you are only three points back and have everyone you need to beat on the schedule?

Exactly. This could shape up to be one of the best Bundesliga finishes since 2001.

Which will always be the best Bundesliga finish of all time. :D

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Well, why not? We can basically get there just by winning our own games. Why not shoot for it when you are only three points back and have everyone you need to beat on the schedule?

I dunno.

While possible, It'll be incredibly tough to achieve. We'd need to perform very well in these final months to succeed. The game on Sunday against Bremen should be a good indicator of how likely a CL finish could be - if we can take points away from that match it would srue be a strong result.

Bu wouldn't Champions League just be awesome? We've been able to participate in it twice before, our campaign in it in 03/04 remains one of my best ever memories of supporting VfB.

But my personal aim is still for us to make it into the top 5.

[Rainer24]

I dunno.

While possible, It'll be incredibly tough to achieve. We'd need to perform very well in these final months to succeed. The game on Sunday against Bremen should be a good indicator of how likely a CL finish could be - if we can take points away from that match it would srue be a strong result.

Bu wouldn't Champions League just be awesome? We've been able to participate in it twice before, our campaign in it in 03/04 remains one of my best ever memories of supporting VfB.

But my personal aim is still for us to make it into the top 5.


I'm just saying that the point differential between a top 5 spot and one of the top 3 spots is really nothing, so why not go for it? I'm certainly not going to be disappointed if we end up in 5th.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Killer game is on today!

Delpierre couldn't recover in time it appears and won't play :(

So here's our Kicker projected lineup, the defence looks horrific:

---------------Lehmann
Traesh-----Osorio---Boulahrouz----Magnin
----------Khedira-----Hitzlsperger
Hilbert-------------------------------Elson
----------Cacau-----Gomez

So, Traesch would move to right back, Osorio to central defence and Magnin would be back in the first 11.

That's one option, i'd start a bit differently:
---------------Lehmann
Hilbert----Osorio-----Boulahrouz---Traesch
----------Khedira-----Hitzlsperger
Lanig------------------------------Elson
----------Gomez-----Marica

Looks a bit weird, but Hilbert has played rightback before(unconvincingly, I admit) and by moving him into defence, we don't need to take the risk of playing Traesch in a totally new position in such a big game. Furthermore, I don't really think Magnin merits a start at the moment.

Lanig can do Hilbert's job on the rightwing, and i'd go with Marica instead of Cacau.

But Kicker's predicted lineup is probably more realistic.

I just hope we can take something from this game. We're unbeaten in 9 Bundesliga games under Babbel, today will be a serious test to this. I see Bremen, despite their poor season, as the favourites going into this. If we get a draw i'll already be satisfied, but it's possible if they attack heavily that we can get them on the counter, one of our strong points.

We'll see, but Bremen-VfB matches are always entertaining, let's hope this is no exception!

[Rainer24]

I like your lineup a hell of a lot more than Kicker's.

[Equilibrium]

I hope for a 3-3, Mario scoring a hat-trick! I don't like this run you guys have going on...

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Boka is playing... where did he come from and how did he recover out of nowhere? :eek:

[Rainer24]

Boka is playing... where did he come from and how did he recover out of nowhere? :eek:

Maybe Babbel thought even a Boka with only one knee is better than this season's Magnin, not that Boka has been that great either.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Both have been crap to be honest. Hopefully he'll perform today - so far he's been fairly good.

Interstingly enough, our biggest chance so far has come from Boenisch rifling the ball towards his own net from 30 yards out!

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Diego scores a brilliant freekick. Saw it coming the minute Khedira fouled in that position.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

So we go into halftime 1-0 down. Nothing's decided yet, been an equal game, unfortunately Bremen scored and we didn't.

[Rainer24]

Well, I'd be pretty happy with a point away to Bremen.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Quick signal by Babbel:

Double substitution at halftime. Hilbert and Elson go off, Gebhart and Lanig come on.

So entirely new figures on the wings for the 2. HZ.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Gebhart with two warning shots in the first 5 minutes... hopefully we can keep this up and equalize.