Comfortable friendly win

Tim Walter’s charges took to the pitch at the Robert-Schlienz-Stadion in a friendly against Swiss top-flight side St. Gallen on Friday, eventually emerging 4-1 victors. Silas Wamangituka teed up Mario Gomez for the opener from close range after just 13 minutes, and the veteran forward headed in his second of the game just five minutes later from Tanguy Coulibaly’s pinpoint cross. At the other end of the pitch, Fabian Bredlow’s excellent positioning allowed him to keep out a good chance for Boris Babic in the 34^th minute, giving VfB a 2-0 lead at the interval.

The Cannstatt boys were the dominant side at the start of the second period and soon extended their lead when the unmarked Atakan Karazor nodded in Pascal Stenzel’s right-wing cross (52’). St. Gallen reduced the arrears moments later when Cedric Itten drilled in a low shot from the edge of the area (57’), but Roberto Massimo finished off a textbook counter-attack in the 74^th minute to hand VfB a 4-1 win.

VfB head coach Tim Walter: “I’m happy with the game because we’ve trained very hard this week. The boys gave it their all, which is what I asked of them, and they did it well. Our youth players were also good. We’ve made progress since the last international break in that we’ve got more control of the game. We’ve got another session on Saturday, and then next week we’ll start our final preparations for our home fixture against Kiel.”