Stuttgart and Schalke belatedly discover stomach for survival fight
“On a day like today,” exhaled Stuttgart’s coach Sebastian Hoeness, “I told the boys they should go out to eat tonight, and they can have a beer as well. It’s part of letting your emotions out.” It was that kind of weekend at the bottom of the table, both for the Swabians and for Schalke, two huge clubs who have spent most of this campaign looking over their shoulders and not seeing much behind them – but two teams who, after this weekend, are very much alive and kicking.
When the Bundesliga coins its marketing strapline “football as it’s meant to be” they envisage a greater level of technical competence than these two show on a regular basis but in terms of pure adrenaline, no argument can be broached after the respective wins of two struggling giants at the weekend. Stuttgart had surfed the wave of a breathless end to their previous home game with Borussia Dortmund, going 2-0 down, playing almost an hour with 10 men and salvaging an improbable point via Silas’ equaliser, the very last kick of the game.
Here they moved out of the bottom three entirely with a win over Borussia Mönchengladbach that was their season in microcosm. Having opened the scoring with Serhou Guirassy’s neat finish – finally given after extensive VAR examination – they lost their striker when he suffered a freak injury via an accidental blow from Lars Stindl. Julian Weigl scored a penalty equaliser before another penalty – and VAR drama – with Ko Itakura finally sent off for a deliberate last-man foul on Tiago Tómas. Tanguy Coulibaly, set to leave at the season’s end, dispatched the winning spot-kick. They “trembled across the finish line,” as Bild put it. “Today,” said sporting director, Fabian Wohlgemuth, almost through gritted teeth, “there was more drama than maybe necessary.”
It has been quite the season; three coaches, the departure of Sven Mislintat and various states of personnel uncertainty but Stuttgart are now unbeaten in five under Hoeness. Just four league games in the former Hoffenheim manager already has more points (eight) than his predecessor, Bruno Labbadia, managed in 11 (six). The appointment of Labbadia, made after Mislintat’s November exit, was one that the former sporting director very publicly disagreed with. Remarkably, Stuttgart could still finish the season with silverware, with a DfB Pokal semi-final against Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday before a Bundesliga showdown at Hertha on Saturday.
Never mind the very top-flight privilege of being part of Saturday night’s
Topspiel, Schalke fans were already exhausted after watching Friday night’s game between Bochum and Dortmund, a game which in ideal circumstances they wouldn’t want either to win – but one thatleft them spitting feathers after VAR failed to help BVB – or them – out, nudging Bochum a point closer to safety.
Quite what this ending did to them is anyone’s guess. Schalke trailed to a goal by the in-form (and ex-Dortmund) Marvin Ducksch for Werder Bremen going into the last 10 minutes but even after the equaliser by on-loan Liverpool defender Sepp van den Berg, it was impossibly nervy. Ducksch threatened a late winner, Dominik Drexler chested it off the line (“it’s just luck that it hit my stomach and not my hand,” he confessed) then went up the other end to collect Rodrigo Salazar’s pass and dispatch a finish that trickled in for the winner, deep into stoppage time.
It felt emotional, but then again so does everything at the moment. Schalke were meant to be dead and buried, counting just nine points to their tally at the halfway stage of the Bundesliga. They have collected twice that number in the Rückrunde already. The work of their coach Thomas Reis has been extraordinary and this would be an escape to beat them all on a relatively