Standard line up, now that Pogreb is hurt for a few weeks. [LINEUP-4-5-1]Cacau,Okazaki,Harnick,Kuz,Hajnal,Kvist,Boka,Maza,Tasci,Boula,Ulriech[/LINEUP-4-5-1] Let's gooooo!
And already 1-0 FCN :-( Simons with a goal in the 9th. None of my streaming sites will work because they either have nothing, or the stream is for Windows. ARG :-(
Our offense decided not to show up the first half -- only 4 shots, and none considered on-goal. Nice save at the end by Ulreich off the direct kick. Kind of a lucky goal for FCN off a pinball-situation from a corner. Having said that though, Hajnal and Ulreich didn't work well together at clearing it and it ended up at Simons' feet. I think Harnik and Okazaki are showing good energy on the wings and almost made something happen a couple of times. Cacau has been virtually non-existent -- partly because there have been very few decent buildups to feed him. On the bench, Ziegler is still out with the flu, so they brought up Weis from the Reserves to back-up Sven. With both Prog and Schieber out, they apparently have Hemlein up also. Overall, FCN has been really dictating the flow. I also think Kvist and Kuz haven't re-synched yet. They were working great together before Kuz got injured.
It's good for Mac? Also, we have to be careful mentioning streams by name on here. People have been known to get banned
Don't know about the Mac situation. Thanks for the heads up about the streams. I didn't realize that was an issue. Won't happen again. Molinaro in for Boka, but aside from that, VfB looks like a different team to start the 2nd. Pressing much better and creating chances. Also, I realized they slowly took over time-of-possession by the end of half 1. Seems to take them a while to ramp up their game lately.
Handball (likely inadvertent) from FCN defender after some good work by Cacau-Harnik results in a penalty. Cannon Kuz buries it in lower right corner! 1-1! I'll take it. Looks like despite my most fervent wishes, Cologne is not going to help us out against Dortmund today.
At least Hoffenhiem is helping. If they win, and we can eek out a win, we'll be tied for 2nd place. 25 minutes to score on more!
A good opportunity for 3 points vs. a struggling Nürnberg squad pretty much wasted, but of course the 1 point is better than none. Overall, VfB definitely improved as the game progressed. A couple of firsts -- Hemlein's 1.BL debut (I think...please correct me if I'm wrong), and better yet, Maza's first BL goal (off a perfect looping cross into the box from Kvist). Our B-W "brothers" from the Sinsheim area helped by us by taking down 'Gladbach. VfB currently sitting 3rd on a strong goal differential, but we'll have to wait and see what happens with Schalke and Hannover to find out where we stand (3rd to 5th) after Matchday #10. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing Hannover beat Bayern , even if it means they pass VfB on points for now.
A thought this was a decent enough result. A point away from home is never easy, and they were ahead twice. Bearing in mind how must of the sides around is in the table did, this was a good point on the road. It was important not to lose for the team's psyche, and we remain very much in the upper echelons. Next weekend the German champions come to Stuttgart. They are 2 points in front of us in the table, the game will be a huge one. Can't wait for it.
Player Ratings: Sven Ulreich: Kicker Rating: 3 (10 games played, 2.85 avg.) My Rating: 3.5 Khalid Boulahrouz: KR: 4 (9 played, 3.44 avg.) MR: 3.5 Serdar Tasci: KR: 3 (10 played, 3.00 avg.) MR: 4.5 Arthur Boka: KR: 5 (5 played, 3 as starter, 3.88 avg.) MR: 4.5 William Kvist: KR: 2.5 (10 played, 2.70 avg.) MR: 2.5 Zdravko Kuzmanovic: KR: 3 (8 played, 3.13 avg.) MR: 2.5 Martin Harnik: KR: 4 (10 played, 3.60 avg.) MR: 3.5 Tamas Hajnal: KR: 4 (9 played, 7 as starter, 4.00 avg.) MR: 5 Shinji Okazaki: KR: 4 (9 played, 7 as starter, 3.69 avg.) MR: 4 Cacau: KR: 5 (10 played, 3.65 avg.) MR: 5 SUBS: Cristian Molinaro: KR: 3.5 (8 played, 7 as starter, 3.63 avg.) MR: 3.5 Christoph Hemlein: KR: No Rating (1 played, 0 as starter, no avg.) MR: No Rating Unused subs: - Andre Weis - Patrick Bauer - Stefano Celozzi - Ibrahima Traore - Christian Gentner ---- Incidentally, congratulations of course to Christoph Hemlein for his Bundesliga debut! Also must say it must be a bit annoying for Patrick Bauer, the yound kid who has been on the bench in every game (due to Delpierre + Niedermeier's injuries) but has yet to receive a competitive minute with the senior side. I would hope that if we are looking comfortable against FSV Frankfurt tonight, he would hopefully be given an opportunity for a minute or two.