[Dead Fingers]

New thread

please continue from here
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=556496

[96Squig]

Hast du Scheiße am Fuß, hast du Scheiße am Fuß.
'nuff said.

[Inara]

Stuttgart fans,

It's unfortunate that for Lyon to win tonight, Stuttgart had to lose, because I have a huge soft spot for Stuttgart, and I felt very sad when I saw the dejection and hopelessness on the faces of some of the players, especially after the second goal.

I honestly thought the game could have gone either way for the first 35 minutes because it took Lyon an awful long time to have any sort of rhythm whatsoever. Stuttgart started the game confidently and came close a few times, but as soon as Lyon started attacking, they fell apart. They still tried though and might have succeeded if Fabio Santos hadn't gotten lucky on a poor clearance.

Going to the next round might be impossible to achieve for Stuttgart, but UEFA Cup qualification is still possible because Lyon have only three points and a -4 goal differential. So hopefully the players will still feel like they have something to fight for.

I don't think Stuttgart were German champions by chance. Maybe there was some luck involved but winners always have luck. And a domestic title isn't won over a handful of games, but over 30+ games. Stuttgart is going through a tough time with so many injuries and with confidence at an all time low. These things happen to the best of teams (it happens to Lyon every year), but I'm confident that Stuttgart will find a way.

Keep your heads up.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Thanks for the kind words, though Lyon fully deserved the win. We played like shit and, had Lyon been more aggressive from the start, they could have beaten us by even more. The players tried, but just weren't up to it. The team's gone bust. I hope we'll be better by the time the return game comes around(which we need to win in order to even hope for 3rd spot), for now congratulations on a fully deserved win.

On the subject of luck last season: i'm sorry, but we played better football than any other team last season(besides Bremen, but they did so only in the less important fixtures), and no one can take that away from us. In terms of luck? What luck? It is lucky that Bremen and Schalke choked on big games and Bayern generally underperformed all season?! No, that's not luck, that's other teams playing below the necessary standard and thus facing the consequences.

for Christ's sake, take a look a wahretabelle.de, I know it only gives hypothetical suggestions and can't be taken as 100% fact, but they allocate points giving/taking away points that were awarded/not awarded because of referee errors, and they determined that if every referee decision last season had been correct, we would have been champion not by 2, but by 9 points!!!! That's 7 points difference, 7 points that should have gone our way.

So really, anyone can say this team is crap right now, their completely correct, however to say we got lucky last year is to completely ignore the fact that we palyed better and deserved it more than any other side at the time. We shouldn't have even had to have an exciting finish, we should've technically become champion 2 games before the season ended!

Anyone can criticize our present form, no one can have a jab at last year, VfB's boys played a fantastic season and no one can take that away from them.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Oh, DF, do you think it would be possible to change the thread name to "VfB Stuttgart - German Champion 2007 Thread" or "VfB Stuttgart - Deutscher Meister 2007 Thread"?

In these hard times it would help my mood a little

[Inara]

Originally Posted by Vfbstuttgartfan

Anyone can criticize our present form, no one can have a jab at last year, VfB's boys played a fantastic season and no one can take that away from them.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as saying that Stuttgart got lucky when they won the Bundesliga last year.

What I meant is that winning a domestic title isn't due to luck, since it's over such a long span of time. But the CL is luck, and its winners often have a big dose of it. The CL is a crap shoot from the beginning, and a squad's performance in it doesn't necessarily reflect on the quality of the team.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

I wasn't referring to you anyway, but to certain other posters.

[Dead Fingers]

Originally Posted by Vfbstuttgartfan

Oh, DF, do you think it would be possible to change the thread name to "VfB Stuttgart - German Champion 2007 Thread" or "VfB Stuttgart - Deutscher Meister 2007 Thread"?

In these hard times it would help my mood a little

Look fine?

Sorry bro.

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Awesome, thanks

[Vfbstuttgartfan]

Dunno what ratings Kicker will give the players but here are my preliminary ones:
R. Schaefer: 3.5
Roberto Hilbert: 4
Fernando Meira: 4.5
Serdar Tasci: 5.5
Ricardo Osorio: 4.5
Pavel Pardo: 4.5
Yildiray Basturk: 5.5
Silvio Meissner: 4
Cacau: 5
Alexander Farnerud: 3.5
Mario Gomez: 5.5

Schaefer and Farnerud, two of our most heavily criticized players, were also our two best ones yesterday in my opinion. The score could've been higher without a couple of solid blocks by Schaefer, and Farnerud atleast brought SOME speed and SOME creativity to a side that was completely lacking it.

In defense, Hilbert was ok considering he played out of position. Osorio also played out of position at left back(not surprisingly, did badly), which may well have been a tactical mistake by Veh. Serdar Tasci continued his absolutely horrendous form, was most to blame for the 1-0 of Lyon and was generally insecure and bad throughout the game. Meira, mind you, was also crap, but not to Tasci's extent.

In midfield /attack, we tried a completely new lineup. We had two defensive midfielders tonight. Pardo played the worst game I can ever remember him playing. Meissner, surprisingly enough, was one of our better players. Considering I didn't expect him to play any part in this season that surprises me. But he was ok, so guess he'll take Pardo's spot for the Leverkusen game(since Pavel is suspended). Basturk was absolutely terrible, like a ghost on the pitch, with not an ounce of creativity. He must show huge improvement, and quickly, if he wants to play a role for this side in the long haul.

As for our strikers, both were crap, though Gomez was the worse one. I don't remember Mario EVER playing a wrose game than this(just like Pardo). He never made the right moves, never found himself space, he was just really, really bad. But Ewerthon was equally crap when he came on.