VfB Stuttgart, threatened with relegation, missed an experience of success at its dress rehearsal before the final fight for class retention. Five days before the first leg of the relegation, the Swabians did not exceed 0:0 at Schalke 04 on the 34th matchday. The royal blues also missed the conciliatory conclusion of a messed up season in the last game under their “coach of the century” Huub Stevens.
The 65-year-old Dutchman, who will return to the Schalk supervisory board after the season and does not want to take on another coaching position, was not able to rejoice over a threesome in his fifth home match during his two-month term in office.
The Stuttgart team of interim coach Nico Willig will go into the important games for the league with at least two games without defeat. On Thursday, VfB will compete against SC Paderborn or Union Berlin, who will compete for second and third place in the Bundesliga lower house on Sunday. Four days later, the away game follows with the second division team.
Stuttgart had already been determined as a relegation participant before the last league match, the crashed runners-up Schalke had made the class retention perfect two match days ago. As a result, both teams took little risk in front of 61,676 spectators. Borna Sosa (7th) brought the guests, who had changed to six positions, to their first conclusion.
For Schalke, who ran up with mourning pile in memory of his late club icons Mike Möllensiep and Walter Zwickhofer, Bundesliga debutant George Timotheou (8th) narrowly missed the goal.
