A skillful, mandatory victory | OneFootball

The VfB finis­hes off the inten­se week with a 2–1 win against new­ly pro­mo­ted Hol­stein Kiel, mar­king a return to win­ning ways in the Bun­des­li­ga after two draws and a loss. The final score is clo­ser than the game its­elf sug­gested.

Appar­ent­ly, VfB can’t do “bor­ing” any­mo­re. Sure, in Munich, the game was deci­ded ear­ly on, but other­wi­se? Late goals in Wolfs­burg, against Hof­fen­heim, and in the vic­to­ry in Turin; wild final pha­ses against Mainz and in the Super­cup. And against Kiel? As they wrap up the busy week, VfB essen­ti­al­ly con­trols the game against KSV, as El Bil­al and Undav dis­play the full ext­ent of their skill, expo­sing the limits of what the new­ly pro­mo­ted team could do defen­si­ve­ly against this VfB squad. The visi­tors, who brought along a decent-sized tra­ve­ling sup­port, only mana­ged their first shot on Alex­an­der Nübel’s goal in the second half, which he saved con­fi­dent­ly. Of cour­se, more goals might have come had the tire­less Jamie Lewe­ling and his team­ma­tes not seen the ball slip away repea­ted­ly in the box. Then again, bet­ween two Tues­day matches, no one expects them to light up the field on a Satur­day after­noon when two spar­klers will suf­fice.

The real dra­ma began when refe­ree Robert Hart­mann star­ted han­ding out yel­low cards in the second half. Both Jeff Cha­b­ot and Fie­te Arp recei­ved two each. Arp suf­fe­r­ed a bit from Hartmann’s ear­lier leni­en­cy, as he initi­al­ly sett­led things with war­nings and then strug­g­led to keep up with yel­low cards toward the end. Cha­b­ot, howe­ver, play­ed a big­ger part in his own dis­mis­sal. The foul that led to his first yel­low may have been neces­sa­ry to keep his Kiel oppo­nent from brea­king into the box. But che­wing out an oppo­nent while alre­a­dy on a card isn’t exact­ly wise beha­vi­or for a defen­si­ve lea­der. Espe­ci­al­ly sin­ce Bun­des­li­ga pro­to­col is clear: when a ver­bal alter­ca­ti­on turns into a crowd of play­ers gathe­ring, the ins­ti­ga­tors are given yel­low cards, regard­less of the initi­al offen­se. Mean­while, other actions, like grab­bing Erme­din Demi­ro­vic by the neck, seem to go unpu­nis­hed. Oh well.

No Loss of Focus

Kiel scored in the 22 minu­tes of their nume­ri­cal advan­ta­ge and then missed a hea­der wide with equal play­ers on the field, but not­hing signi­fi­cant hap­pen­ed after­ward as VfB stay­ed rela­tively well-orga­ni­zed, even down a man. Chabot’s phy­si­cal pre­sence was cle­ar­ly missed on the goal its­elf, as he might have been able to pre­vent Harres’s hea­der off the cross­bar. The ball boun­ced forceful­ly to Armin Gigovic’s feet, giving him hard­ly any time to react. In the end, I’d cate­go­ri­ze that goal as “frus­t­ra­ting but for­giva­ble,” simi­lar to Mittelstädt’s lap­se during Hoffenheim’s ope­ning goal. Kiel’s expec­ted goals value of 0.68 on Understat.com speaks volu­mes, con­fir­ming that one goal was about all the visi­tors could hope for, though they were other­wi­se well-orga­ni­zed and resi­li­ent. VfB, as they did in Turin, won cru­cial mid­field duels and reco­ver­ed lost balls.

This vic­to­ry was still essen­ti­al for mora­le, pro­ving that the team didn’t lose focus after the high of Tuesday’s game, and can hand­le a match against a new­ly pro­mo­ted team pro­fes­sio­nal­ly. That’s exact­ly the aim at this stage. Chabot’s absence on Fri­day against Lever­ku­sen will sting and could impact that game, but the team is ste­adi­ly gai­ning con­fi­dence and expe­ri­ence, and may be capa­ble of trip­ping up last season’s two Euro­pa League fina­lists. But first up is Kai­sers­lau­tern in the cup on Tues­day, fresh off their Satur­day night win over Bun­des­li­ga 2 lea­ders Düs­sel­dorf. On paper, the class dif­fe­rence is even grea­ter here, but the Pala­ti­nes are in good form, having just won two straight games against top teams, in con­trast to the still win­less Kiel. Nevert­hel­ess, this cup game should end in a straight­for­ward win — per­haps with a litt­le less dra­ma for a chan­ge.

Pic­tue: © Chris­ti­an Kas­par-Bart­ke/­Get­ty Images