VfB are out of the DFB Cup, with head coach Pellegrino Matarazzo’s men falling to a narrow 2-1 defeat to Bayer 04 Leverkusen on Wednesday evening. Having shipped two rather unconventional goals, they halved the deficit in the dying minutes and pressed for an equaliser to take the tie into extra time, but it was not to be. On the positive side, two players made their professional debut in Stuttgart colours.
Personnel
There were six changes to the starting XI from the most recent league match against FC St. Pauli, with Fabian Bredlow, Gonzalo Castro, Daniel Didavi, Silas Wamangituka, Pascal Stenzel and Nicolas Gonzalez all coming in, replacing Gregor Kobel, Borna Sosa, Philipp Klement (not in the squad), the injured Marc Oliver Kempf (broken jaw), Atakan Karazor and Mario Gomez (who were both on the bench). Clinton Mola was in the squad for the first time after joining the club at the end of January from Chelsea.
| 26th minute | A VfB counter-attack is led by Gonzalez, who then feeds Wamangituka. The Congolese attacker bears down on goal and lets fly from just inside the box, only to see his strike hit the bar. |
| 43rd minute | Leverkusen’s Kai Havertz prods the ball over the line but the video assistant referee says that the goal should not stand. The score remains 0-0. |
| 58th minute | New English recruit Mola makes his debut for VfB, coming on for Roberto Massimo. |
| 71st minute | A corner leads to the first goal of the match. Lucas Alario and Bredlow both go up for the ball, which makes its way into the back of the net to give the hosts the lead. |
| 79th minute | Seventeen-year-old Lilian Egloff, who joined VfB as a youth back in 2012, becomes the second player of the evening to make his debut for the visitors. |
| 83rd minute | Leverkusen’s pressure pays off and Alario makes it 2-0. |
| 85th minute | VfB refuse to give up, and a cross from Gonzalez is converted by Wamangituka to pull it back to 2-1. |
Gonzalo Castro:
We played a good match and caused Leverkusen a heck of a lot of problems. At the end of the day, though, we didn’t have the cool heads that Leverkusen had. We put in a real shift but didn’t get our rewards. That said, it’s a positive that we dragged ourselves back from 2-0 down.
Summary
Despite a brave, committed performance, VfB bowed out of the DFB Cup after a narrow defeat. Though they fell two goals adrift, a young VfB team (with an average age of 22.1 years once all three substitutions had been made in the 79th minute) battled their way back into the tie and had a chance to level it in time added on.