For reasons that this column is too young to remember or too mathematically illiterate to understand, the Bundesliga used to award negative and positive points for every result: 2-0 for a win, 1-1 for a draw, 0-2 for a defeat. The Bundesliga table was as short and squat as an old-style C battery as a consequence and there was something a little cruel about that regime. Losers didn’t just get nothing, they got less than nothing.
Things are different now. There are no more truly negative results, nil points is as low it can get. Off the pitch, pessimistic sentiment has also been widely banished in favour of “can do” self-help jargon or stilted syntax with multiple negation. What was it Robin Dutt said about Huub Stevens’ future after Stuttgart’s 4-0 defeat at Leverkusen on Friday night? “There is no reason not to stick with the manager.” Sounds pretty convincing, doesn’t it? A lot more convincing than “There is reason to stick with the manager.”
It’s been anything but S club heaven for Stevens in his second stint in Swabia. The Dutchman has won two in 13 games since taking over from the luckless Armin Veh. He had seen the “best 30 minutes” of the year by his side at the BayArena but, unfortunately, the Leverkusen full-back Wendell struck in minute 32. The visitors’ defence disintegrated amid a maelstrom of mistakes after that.
Going into another must-win game against Frankfurt at the weekend, the situation couldn’t be much bleaker for the 2007 champions. They have been bottom for six weeks, have never been so bad points-wise in any season and have not won for nine games. Stevens is right to point to an improvement in recent games; in the 0-0 versus Hertha 10 days ago, Stuttgart played as well as they had for months, showing a bit of attacking impetus and courage going forward.
But without their key striker Vedad Ibisevic, who cannot get a start under Stevens, hasn’t scored in 15 months and has become a constant bone of contention in the press conferences – “When will you ask why he didn’t play?” Stevens demanded of the reporters on Friday – there’s precious little action in the box.
Stuttgart are five points adrift of safety. “I will fight,” said Stevens. “Bigger deficits have been made up before,” insisted Dutt. The 50-year-old tried to portray his enduring faith in Stevens as the result of careful consideration. “If I was a gambler I might act differently but I see myself as a factual analyst,” he said, channelling bits of David Brent.
The former Bremen manager, the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper revealed, convinced the club’s nervous leadership with ideas for the long-term before his appointment two months ago. Conceptually, he might be on a different level than his predecessor, Fredi Bobic, but there’s something that screams unlucky general about him, ever since he left after four successful years at Freiburg in 2011. His stints as head coach at Leverkusen and Bremen were unmitigated disasters; he wasn’t able to convey his footballing vision without upsetting half the squad.
At his office desk as sporting director of the German Football Association he said he didn’t feel challenged enough, which makes his latest career decision a bit curious, to say the least.
Righting all the wrongs at notoriously fickle VfB is a herculean task and perhaps it needs someone with more of a natural aura of authority. Dutt, you feel, is himself torn between trusting in Stevens’ relegation fight experience – he saved Stuttgart as interim “Feuerwehrmann” (firefighter) from the drop last year – and installing a new, much more modern coach such as the former Leipzig coach Alexander Zorniger, who is lined up to take over next season anyway.
Before the game against Hertha, Dutt came close to criticising Stevens’ emphasis on keeping clean sheets but does he want to risk “burning” Zorniger by seeing him take the team down for the first time in 40 years? The master plan was to start afresh, with new faces on the bench and in the team in 2015-16 – but not in the second division.
Saturday’s match against Frankfurt, the club nicknamed the diva, will be a very fraught affair; 500 Stuttgart hardcore fans left the BayArena before the 90 minutes were up and that made the now customary exchange of views with the players after the final whistle a relatively civilised affair.
There will be more severe repercussions if VfB continue their losing streak at the Mercedes-Benz Arena, however, and double negation won’t bring a positive outcome, necessarily. There is no reason not to believe that in Dutt and Stevens the club have a couple odd enough to make the nightmare come true. Relying on the competition being even worse is not an option either. Hamburger SV – 15th – have cleverly trademarked that strategy already.
Results Leverkusen 4-0 Stuttgart, Hertha 2-2 Schalke, Augsburg 0-2 Mainz, Frankfurt 4-0 Paderborn, Hoffenheim 3-0 HSV, Bremen 0-4 Bayern, Dortmund 0-0 Köln, Wolfsburg 3-0 Freiburg, Gladbach 2-0 Hannover 96.
