Overall record
4 games. 1 win, 3 defeats. 5:7 goal difference.
Familiar faces
Following VfB’s relegation in 2019, Atakan Karazor moved to Stuttgart from Kiel. The current VfB captain made 28 first-team appearances for The Storks and a further seven in the reserve team.
Fabian Wohlgemuth, board member for sport at VfB, was Kiel’s managing director for sport from June 2018 to October 2019.
What the coaches say
Marcel Rapp: “We’ll need to produce a top-level performance. We’ll have to stick together out on the pitch, and we’ll need support from our fans in order to get something from the game. We’ll have to be mentally ready for this match and we want to earn Kiel’s first-ever Bundesliga win.”
Sebastian Hoeneß: “It's an important game. With a good performance, we want to claw back the points that we've dropped previously. That can have a positive effect on the coming week.”
Personnel
Dan-Axel Zagadou, Leonidas Stergiou, Justin Diehl and Luca Raimund remain out. Chris Führich is back in the squad. Angelo Stiller (broken finger) will play with a cast.
Set-piece specialists
VfB have scored seven times from set pieces so far in the Bundesliga this season, a league high alongside VfL Wolfsburg and Bayer 04 Leverkusen. Kiel, meanwhile, have conceded the highest number of goals from dead-ball situations alongside Wolfsburg (also seven).
Attendance
The home area of the MHP Arena is already sold out. The visitors will bring approximately 2,400 fans with them.