All about the next game: Madrid away in the Champions League | OneFootball

Final­ly, the time has come: VfB returns to the inter­na­tio­nal stage and faces Real Madrid in a com­pe­ti­ti­ve match for the first time in its club histo­ry.

It has been 4,037 days or ele­ven years and nine­teen days sin­ce VfB last play­ed in a Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on. The late equa­li­zer by Rijeka’s Muja­no­vic mark­ed the begin­ning of a break from inter­na­tio­nal foot­ball that las­ted lon­ger than any befo­re it. In the ’70s and ’90s, VfB fans alre­a­dy had to wait five years for a return to Euro­pean football—but a full ele­ven years?! Uni­ma­gi­nable. Even lon­ger ago is the last of only a handful of appearan­ces in the Cham­pi­ons League in VfB’s histo­ry, which was exact­ly 14 years and six months ago. After a deca­de of decli­ne and suf­fe­ring, any Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­on would have been wel­co­me. But the fact that VfB is final­ly able to com­pe­te with Europe’s best again is, of cour­se, the well-deser­ved reward for a fabu­lous sea­son and finis­hing as run­ners-up.

I was in the sta­di­um for the first leg against Bar­ce­lo­na in Febru­ary 2010 and can still vivid­ly remem­ber how the Cham­pi­ons League anthem play­ed as our play­ers wal­ked out. For many VfB fans, though, this is a com­ple­te­ly new experience—perhaps one of the high­lights of their fan jour­ney so far, along­side many exci­ting matches. For me, it’s a trip back in time to when par­ti­ci­pa­ting in inter­na­tio­nal foot­ball was so rou­ti­ne that some­ti­mes the sta­di­um wouldn’t even be full, and finis­hing mid-table in the Bun­des­li­ga was a dis­ap­point­ment. After two rele­ga­ti­ons and two last-minu­te res­cue mis­si­ons, retur­ning to this level is no lon­ger taken for gran­ted, and the exci­te­ment is accor­din­gly huge. You can rightful­ly say: VfB is back!

And after the hard-fought late vic­to­ry in Mön­chen­glad­bach, we can ful­ly enjoy this game and ever­y­thing around it. This fits well with the

Personnel situation

that coach Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß announ­ced at his first Cham­pi­ons League press con­fe­rence. Only Leo­ni­das Ster­giou and Ameen Al-Dak­hil are miss­ing; all other play­ers regis­tered for the com­pe­ti­ti­on are rea­dy to play. This puts Hoe­neß in a dilem­ma for the

Possible starting lineup.

My sug­ges­ti­on:

Mil­lot and Füh­rich, who came off the bench in Glad­bach, rota­te back into the start­ing lin­e­up. In cen­tral defen­se, Rou­ault, who per­for­med stron­gly after coming on, replaces the young Anrie Cha­se.

Statistics

As men­tio­ned, this is the first offi­ci­al mee­ting bet­ween the two clubs; pre­vious­ly, the­re were only two fri­end­ly matches. I don’t need to pull out any stats on Real Madrid. The Madrid side are both record hol­ders and defen­ding cham­pi­ons of the com­pe­ti­ti­on. Real curr­ent­ly sits in third place in La Liga with 11 points after five games. Kyli­an Mbap­pé has been the most pro­li­fic so far with three goals. Inte­res­t­ingly, four of their nine goals this sea­son have come from pen­al­ties, inclu­ding one in Saturday’s 2–0 win over Real Socie­dad San Sebas­ti­an.

Conclusion

VfB cele­bra­tes its return to Euro­pe against the toug­hest oppo­nent you could choo­se. With a cou­ra­ge­ous per­for­mance, the team can con­ti­nue buil­ding con­fi­dence at the Estadio Sant­ia­go Ber­nabéu. With Madrid, it’s even toug­her than Lever­ku­sen last sea­son: at some point, they always strike. But one thing hasn’t chan­ged in the last 14 years—for us VfB fans, atten­ding a Cham­pi­ons League match is still a pri­vi­le­ge and a cele­bra­ti­on. Let’s cele­bra­te it appro­pria­te­ly!

Pic­tu­re: © PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP via Get­ty Images