VfB Stuttgart can win even without goals from Serhou Guirassy. In the 2-0 (0-0) win at 1. FC Cologne on matchday 6 of the Bundesliga, substitute Deniz Undav (68th minute, 88th) gave the Swabians three points.
Stuttgart’s coach answered the crucial question after 60 minutes: switch offensively or defensively? “It was a zero. We had the feeling we were doing it offensively”said Sebastian Hoeneß in the Sportschau interview after the game, “and put Undav in the front.”
It became the golden change. Undav scored the goals and with their fourth win in a row, Stuttgart moved up to second place with 15 points.
After their third defeat in a row, Cologne are sixteenth with just one point and still winless. “It doesn’t matter whether you played well in all the games.”Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart stated to the Sportschau: “Football is tough there.”
After the recent negative series, the Rhinelanders were clearly trying not to concede a goal. From the start, FC concentrated on defensive work and left the field to the guests for long stretches. With the self-confidence of their recent series of successes, Stuttgart always combined well to get to the penalty area, but not much happened towards the goal.
Stuttgart’s Guirassy barely finishes
Guirassy, in particular, kept making good passes near the penalty area, so that apart from a crossbar header (7th minute) from Stuttgart’s ten-goal man, there were no shots to be seen and in the end he remained without a goal for the first time this season. Cologne didn’t trust themselves a little more until the middle of the first half and had decent finishes with shots from Davie Selke (24′) and Dejan Ljubicic (31′).
In the second half, not much changed in the direction of the game. Cologne waited for a counterattack, Stuttgart for a gap in the hosts’ defense. This happened in the 68th minute: Chris Führich broke through on the left side of the penalty area and passed it back to Undav, who had just been substituted. He was criminally free and put the ball into the Cologne goal from eight meters.
Cologne offensive too harmless
The hosts then struggled for an answer. But as with the previous season, the “billy goats” hardly managed anything towards the goal from the game. Attempts from Ljubicic (84th) and Faride Alidou (85th) were defused by VfB goalkeeper Alexander Nübel. But Stuttgart put the lid on it with a counterattack: Silas Katompa Mvumpa moved away on the half-left and Undav dusted his shot onto the post to make it 2-0.
For VfB, the upcoming Bundesliga opponent is VfL Wolfsburg (Saturday, October 7th, 2023 at 3:30 p.m.). Not far from its own city limits, Cologne faces Bayer 04 Leverkusen away (Sunday, 3:30 p.m.).