VfB Stuttgart did its homework against Young Boys Bern and still has to make do with the playoffs in the Europa League.
Chema fired VfB Stuttgart to a last-minute win against Young Boys Bern. Previously, Deniz Undav (6th) and Ermedin Demirovic (7th) had shot the Swabians into the lead. Armin Gigovic scored the next goal shortly before half-time (42′) and Sandro Lauper equalized (57′).
VfB Stuttgart with the early double strike
VfB Stuttgart rotated a lot. Fabian Bredlow, for example, celebrated his Europa League premiere. However, the representative of regular goalkeeper Alexander Nübel had little to do in the first half. Because Stuttgart started the game with a double blow: Deniz Undav used Lorenz Assignon’s cross to make it 1-0 (6th). Ermedin Demirovic completed Undav’s through ball to make it 2-0 (7th).
Stuttgart continued to combine forward as the Swabians wanted to improve their goal difference in the hope of facing the weakest playoff opponent possible. Young Boys keeper Marvin Keller was just able to deflect Assignon’s shot into a corner (28′), while the 23-year-old was able to deflect Finn Jeltsch’s shot onto the post (31′).
Bredlow’s mistake is immediately punished
Stuttgart actually had everything under control, but then got themselves into trouble. Bredlow played an incredibly bad pass to Alvyn Sanches. The ball landed via Gregory Wüthrich to Armin Gigovic, who smashed the ball into the corner of the Stuttgart goal from 18 meters (42′). The cheering from the Young Boys fans was still very subdued. Because some of them rioted at the away game at Aston Villa in Birmingham, UEFA excluded the away fans. Some black and yellow scarves could still be seen in the stadium.
Stuttgart’s negligence took revenge after the break. Because the Swiss came out of the locker room better and got their deserved equalizer after 57 minutes. Former Mainz player Edimilson Fernandes crossed his corner to the edge of the penalty area. There, Sandro Lauper hammered the ball directly into Fabian Bredlow’s goal with a Thomas Hitzlsperger memory volley.
VfB Stuttgart suddenly under pressure
After the equalizer, VfB Stuttgart was out of control and allowed the Bernese to counterattack. Bredlow was just able to keep the score at bay after Sanches’ header and Gigovic’s powerful shot hit the side netting. The team of former Leverkusen and Gladbach coach Gerardo Seoane was clearly the better team in this phase.
The results on the other places definitely played into the Swabians’ hands: Panathinaikos shot AS Roma out of eighth place and Ferencvaros were well behind Nottingham Forrest. That meant: A goal from VfB Stuttgart and the Swabians would have skipped the annoying playoffs and moved straight into the round of 16.
From then on it went back and forth: Stuttgart wanted to go straight to the round of 16, Bern at least wanted to get into the playoffs. The VfB defense was just able to block Cordova’s shot (86′), Badredine Bouanani shot just over the goal (88′), Demirovic and Joshua Vagnoman failed to escape the crowd (89′). Then came Chema’s big moment: the 20-year-old Spaniard powered his way through the Swiss defense and made the final score 3-2.
The cheers were huge. Alone: It still wasn’t enough for the round of 16. Jan Ziolkowski equalized for Roma in Athens and shot VfB back into the playoffs. They will be held on February 19th and 26th.
Next Sunday there will be a Baden-Württemberg duel between the two Europa League participants. Then VfB Stuttgart welcomes SC Freiburg (live in the audio stream on Spirtschau.de from 3:30 p.m.).
