Precision Work | OneFootball

In their home game against Young Boys Bern, VfB tur­ned things around after halft­i­me and secu­red their first home Cham­pi­ons League win in 15 years. The 5–1 vic­to­ry was empha­tic, though one pos­si­bly decisi­ve moment in the game was less so.

Wow. That was clo­se. Not the final result for VfB against BSC Young Boys, who ulti­m­ate­ly fell apart in the Neckar­sta­di­on, but rather the VAR decis­i­on that con­firm­ed Enzo Millot’s goal for 2–1. The assistant refe­ree was quite con­vin­ced that Fabi­an Rie­der had scraped the ball not off the line but from out of bounds befo­re his assist — and the visi­ting team and I felt the same. Howe­ver, Rie­der and Mil­lot igno­red the wild­ly flag-waving assistant and wise­ly play­ed on — as you should until the refe­ree blows the whist­le. In this case, the whist­le signal­ed a goal for VfB and a restart for the Bern team, mar­king yet ano­ther red-and-white come­back after fal­ling behind. True pre­cis­i­on work. In a match fea­turing five goals, this one might seem a mere foot­no­te, but it cle­ar­ly ratt­led the Swiss cham­pi­ons. They fell so out of rhythm that, while they mana­ged to fend off Erme­din Demi­ro­vić, they con­ce­ded three more goals — from Chris Füh­rich, Josha Vagno­man, and even Yan­nik Kei­tel, each more spec­ta­cu­lar than the last.

As ele­gant­ly as the play­ers with the red stri­pe swept their oppon­ents asi­de after halft­i­me, they had strug­g­led in the first half. Once again, they con­ce­ded an ear­ly goal due to pas­si­ve play. The YB play­ers used the moment for a heart­felt tri­bu­te to their team­ma­te Meschack Elia and his late child. Fol­lo­wing this, VfB found them­sel­ves up against a com­pact, high-pres­sing oppo­nent who sen­sed oppor­tu­ni­ty, much like Bel­gra­de had done. The visi­tors tried to trans­la­te their years of league domi­nan­ce into points on the inter­na­tio­nal stage. VfB had no access in attack, crea­ted few dan­ge­rous pas­ses, and resor­ted to pos­ses­si­on play and late­ral move­ment. You could opti­mi­sti­cal­ly argue that VfB was set­ting up their oppo­nent, as seen with Ange­lo Stiller’s pre­cise equa­li­zer. But that would assu­me the team had a plan for over­co­ming the defi­cit, which they lacked for much of the half.

VfB Football at Its Best

The team often seems hesi­tant to play quick, decisi­ve pas­ses — like the one that led to the equa­li­zer — to advan­ce for­ward. Ins­tead, they run down the left wing for the tenth time while Josh Vagno­man is stran­ded on the oppo­si­te side. Goal­kee­per Alex Nübel, who didn’t look gre­at on the con­ce­ded goal but had to deal with Jeff Cha­b­ot blo­cking his view, often holds onto the ball far too long, wai­ting for the oppo­nent to push for­ward — some­thing they haven’t done sin­ce the sea­son began. Enzo Millot’s ambi­tious dia­go­nal pas­ses, while spec­ta­cu­lar, seem almost tele­gra­phed to the oppo­nent. The team con­ti­nues to make life unneces­s­a­ri­ly hard for them­sel­ves, per­haps due to phy­si­cal or emo­tio­nal exhaus­ti­on, only to sud­den­ly find their rhythm when they remem­ber how to play.

The second half show­ca­sed VfB foot­ball at its best: alert for the go-ahead goal, coor­di­na­ted in the free-kick rou­ti­ne whe­re Fabi Rie­der set up Chris Füh­rich for a bril­li­ant finish, ener­ge­tic in Joshua Vagnoman’s strike, and bold in Yan­nik Keitel’s clo­sing goal. The only play­er who couldn’t find the net was Erme­din Demi­ro­vić. Despi­te scoring seven league goals this sea­son, not­hing work­ed for him in the Cham­pi­ons League on this night. In such games, a play­er like him is usual­ly indis­pensable, and this time it wasn’t due to a lack of ser­vice. Hop­eful­ly, he can regain his scoring touch befo­re Christ­mas and, in the new year, work with Jamie Lewe­ling and Deniz Undav to keep VfB’s Euro­pean hopes ali­ve.

Focusing on Strengths

This result off­sets the blo­wout loss in Bel­gra­de in terms of goal dif­fe­rence, though the points are still miss­ing. The group stage ends after just eight games, and the stan­dings are incre­di­bly tight, making goal dif­fe­rence cru­cial. With so many teams in the mix, it’s hard to keep track, but it seems VfB not only needs a win in Bra­tis­la­va but also at least a point against Paris Saint-Ger­main. That’s a tall order, one the team will hop­eful­ly face with a bit more rest and rein­force­ments — and the right mind­set. Away at Slo­van and against Paris, the­re may not be oppor­tu­ni­ties to stage such come­backs. The last two games, howe­ver, should encou­ra­ge the team to focus on their strengths in the league matches against bot­tom-tier teams Hei­den­heim and St. Pau­li. VfB is gai­ning momen­tum.

Pic­tu­re: © Alex Grimm/Getty Images