El Bilaaaaaaaaal.…Goooooaaaaaal! | OneFootball

In an incre­di­bly focu­sed game, VfB over­ca­me a dis­al­lo­wed goal and a missed penal­ty, bea­ting Juven­tus Turin in their sta­di­um. An unfor­gettable evening!

Yes, the head­line is meant exact­ly as it is and is inten­ded to recall (in trans­la­ti­on) the legen­da­ry TV com­men­ta­ry by Wer­ner Hansch on Octo­ber 1, 2003, when Kevin Kuranyi con­ver­ted a pass from Imre Sza­bics and sea­led a win for the histo­ry books against Man­ches­ter United. For me, the away vic­to­ry in Juven­tus Sta­di­um last Tues­day is on par with that home win back then. We don’t need to unneces­s­a­ri­ly down­play our­sel­ves, but wins against the giants of Euro­pean foot­ball are cer­tain­ly not a regu­lar occur­rence for us. And I won’t let anyo­ne down­play it by poin­ting to a weak oppo­nent: Juven­tus was unsuc­cessful also becau­se VfB, just three days after the devas­ta­ting thras­hing in Munich, show­ed a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent face and per­for­med with extre­me con­cen­tra­ti­on and orga­niza­ti­on, espe­ci­al­ly in defen­se. Turin was­n’t even harm­less: Simi­lar to Real Madrid, they allo­wed VfB to con­trol the ball and the game for long peri­ods, only to break for­ward with light­ning-quick tran­si­ti­ons down the flanks toward Alex­an­der Nübel’s goal. But Antho­ny Rou­ault and Jeff Cha­b­ot – and of cour­se their team­ma­tes – were the­re to cle­an­ly defend ever­y­thing.

With a clean Dropkick

The path to this his­to­ric vic­to­ry wasn’t paved with roses, of cour­se. VfB had ple­nty of chan­ces in the first half – by halft­i­me, the shot count was 12 to 1 – but once again didn’t capi­ta­li­ze on a sin­gle one. The most pro­mi­sing were Demi­ro­vic, who hit the post, and Deniz Undav, who wan­ted to recrea­te his goal from Madrid but was denied by Turin goal­kee­per Perin, who, like his coun­ter­part in the Madrid game, was named man of the match. None­thel­ess, VfB’s approach was much more matu­re than in Munich. The play­ers with the red stri­pe pres­sed with con­trol, wit­hout con­stant­ly being over­run, and won key mid­field duels. The qua­li­ty of a team like Juven­tus Turin also lies in defen­ding solid­ly at the back and wai­ting for their chan­ces up front, whe­re you can expect someone like Dusan Vlaho­vic to make the most of them.

Things got real­ly wild after the break when Deniz Undav had a screa­mer dis­al­lo­wed, sen­ding the away fans from ecsta­sy to rage. At least from the impres­si­on in the sta­di­um, the refe­ree see­med to offi­ci­a­te very ran­dom­ly in this match, with a loo­se approach and then reac­ting to appeals. Tech­ni­cal­ly, the VAR inter­ven­ti­on may have been jus­ti­fied in the end, but it was still a shame about the beau­tiful goal. Yet the team didn’t lose com­po­sure, even after miss­ing ano­ther penal­ty, which couldn’t be con­ver­ted on the rebound eit­her, and didn’t resort to time-was­ting in the final stages. At that point, a three-point vic­to­ry didn’t seem likely, espe­ci­al­ly as Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß had alre­a­dy sub­sti­tu­ted his stri­kers Deniz Undav and the yel­low-card-ris­ked Erme­din Demi­ro­vic. But the­re was still Ata­lan­ta loan­ee El Bil­al, and of cour­se, Enzo Mil­lot. Mil­lot had alre­a­dy set up a goal for the stri­ker in the 5–1 win against Dort­mund, but that was more due to Millot’s dribb­ling skills on the byline. This time, El Bil­al won the ball in the box. VfB regai­ned it after a Turin hea­der cle­arance, and Mil­lot and El Bil­al play­ed a one-two through the Juven­tus defen­se befo­re the stri­ker ele­gant­ly took the ball and finis­hed with a clean drop­kick into the goal.

A Dream in White and Red

This time, the away sec­tion was tru­ly in ecsta­sy, just like at the see­mingly end­less­ly delay­ed final whist­le. The­se are the moments foot­ball fans hope for, and for which we endu­re the tough times. The dra­ma is natu­ral­ly more com­pa­ra­ble to Endo’s goal against Colo­gne in 2022, espe­ci­al­ly with the ten­si­on bet­ween the win­ning goal and the final whist­le. But it’s a dif­fe­rent sto­ry when you “only” pre­vent rele­ga­ti­on com­pared to secu­ring an unex­pec­ted under­dog vic­to­ry in the most important Euro­pean cup com­pe­ti­ti­on against an oppo­nent that usual­ly ope­ra­tes in a very dif­fe­rent stra­to­sphe­re than your own club. Even two days later, back at my desk at home, I still can’t quite belie­ve the luck we VfB fans were bles­sed with on Tues­day night, or the his­to­ric mile­stone we wit­nessed in the club’s glo­rious histo­ry. Sim­ply an abso­lu­te dream in white and red and the crow­ning achie­ve­ment of an other­wi­se beau­tiful short trip to nor­t­hern Ita­ly.

And bey­ond the emo­tio­nal signi­fi­can­ce, it was also an important respon­se to the game in Munich. The sport­ing signi­fi­can­ce was imme­dia­te­ly put into per­spec­ti­ve by tho­se in char­ge, who declared the home game against Kiel as the most important match of the week. This is cle­ver, of cour­se, as it helps to chan­nel the eupho­ria into ener­gy, but it’s also right, becau­se now the team has to show, against a less glamo­rous oppo­nent, that unli­ke the pre­vious week, they’re rea­dy and able to push them­sel­ves to their limits. But natu­ral­ly, the 1–0 win in Turin (!!!) was not wit­hout sport­ing signi­fi­can­ce: With four points and matches still to come against three win­less teams so far in the group stage, the chan­ces of two more games in the knock­out round next year are incre­asing. And with that comes not only signi­fi­cant addi­tio­nal reve­nue, but also the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wri­te more histo­ry in Euro­pe.

Pic­tu­re: © Vale­rio Pennicino/Getty Images