A hard-fought point

Match summary:

Sunday’s game between VfL Bochum and VfB Stuttgart may have ended goalless, but the ball did end up in the back of the net early in the second half. VfB defender Konstantinos Mavropanos thought he had given the visitors the lead in the 55^th minute, but referee Christian Dingert cut short VfB fans’ celebrations by disallowing the goal for handball against the Greek centre-back.

The goal would have been no less than VfB deserved after a much livelier start to the second period. Pellegrino Matarazzo’s side applied more pressure on the hosts and went close again on the hour mark when Omar Marmoush blazed just over the crossbar from a tight angle. The half-time introduction of debutant Chris Führich in particular breathed new life into the visitors’ attack, but they were unable to find a way through the Bochum defence.

Long-awaited debut

Führich was named in Matarazzo’s squad for the first time in a competitive game after breaking his collar bone soon after joining the club in the summer. The 23-year-old was brought on at the start of the second half for his Bundesliga debut for VfB.

Post-match reaction

Pellegrino Matarazzo: “The clean sheet is certainly the main positive from the game. We defended solidly as a team for the duration of the game and also saw a good goalkeeping performance from Florian Müller. We’ll continue to work on the attacking issues in the coming days.”

Sven Mislintat: “We’ll take the 0-0. We did well after a mixed first half, even if we didn’t create any golden opportunities. We were missing the killer instinct in front of the opponents’ goal.”

Chris Führich: “I was brought on with the task of adding pace and determination to our attacking play, and that’s exactly what I tried to do. First and foremost, I’m happy to be back. We’ll take the positives from the game.”