With a winning goal in injury time, VfL Wolfsburg won the crisis duel in the Bundesliga and thereby massively increased the sporting problems of VfB Stuttgart. After a bitter 2:3 (2:2) in the Volkswagen Arena, VfB are still without a win after eight matchdays of the new season and have fallen back to 16th place in the table.
Yannick Gerhardt scored the decisive goal in front of 24,125 spectators after some nice work from Mattias Svanverg and Omar Marmoush (90.1 minutes). A game that had been very respectable for a long time had long since lost its excitement and intensity by this point. The Stuttgart lead by Serhou Guirassy (22nd) only lasted a minute because Omar Marmoush, who was loaned to VfB last season, immediately scored to make it 1-1 (23rd).
A mistake by goalkeeper Florian Müller favored Wolfsburg's 2-1 lead through Maximilian Arnold (38'). But again, after only six minutes, it was again a tie because Konstantinos Mavropanos used one of the many laxities in Wolfsburg this season to make it 2-2 (45.1).
The break was good for VfL
The two-week international break had actually done VfL a lot of good. The perennial topic of Max Kruse has been put on hold for the time being after a training injury to the striker who has been eliminated from sport. The fans celebrated Marcel Schäfer, who rose from sports director to managing director in February, with chants. And despite his miserable starting record, coach Niko Kovac has also received public support from supervisory board boss Frank Witter, leading player Josuha Guilavogui and still managing director Jörg Schmadtke in the past few days.
The team took it all in and offered one of the most dedicated performances of this so far messed up season. Ironically, it was VfB goalkeeper Müller, who later slipped up, who repeatedly prevented a Wolfsburg lead by Yannick Gerhardt (14th), Marmoush (15th) and Mattias Svanberg (21st) in the early stages.
A core problem, however, is that VfL never maintains the intensity Kovac demands for the duration of an entire game. With both goals conceded, the defense network acted too half-heartedly. And since VfB has a footballing quality that should actually be enough for more than just 16th place, he took advantage of that twice.
The equalizer shortly before half-time had an effect, in the second half Stuttgart were even closer to a third goal than VfL. As hard as the "Wolves" tried: They had more possession of the ball, the greater mileage - but until their late winning goal only one clear goal chance through Jakub Kaminski (74th). At this point, VfB could have been in the lead long ago. Silas only hit the crossbar in the 57th minute, Wataru Endo missed another counterattack (63') and a second goal by Mavropanos was only blocked by Wolfsburg goalkeeper Koen Casteels (73'). That took bitter revenge in injury time.
