Following on from the 3-1 home win over Bayern Munich and qualification for next season’s UEFA Champions League, VfB Stuttgart’s focus has now shifted to the final two games of the 2023/24 Bundesliga campaign. The first of those arrives under the floodlights on Friday evening (kick-off 20:30 CEST), when Sebastian Hoeneß’s side travel to ninth-placed FC Augsburg, who are hoping to improve on their current haul of 39 points and secure European football of their own next term.
Hoeneß is determined to keep concentration levels high among his squad going into the home straight. “I’m not out on the training pitch with a whip in my hand, because I have to allow the boys to let out a bit of gas,” said the VfB coach. “But for me, there’s no alternative but to go all-in for the last couple of games. We’ve got nothing to lose and will send out a strong team in Augsburg.”
To that end, both Enzo Millot and Maximilian Mittelstädt are available again after suspension for yellow card accumulation. “They will probably both be back in the side, but otherwise there are one or two question marks,” revealed Hoeneß.
They face opponents in Augsburg who play with high intensity and are extremely tough to play against in floodlit games in their own stadium, as VfB found out last year. “They’re still fighting for a place in Europe, so we’ll need to be well prepared both mentally and physically,” said the tactician. “They’ve got two physically robust strikers in Phillip Tietz and Ermedin Demirovic, who are difficult to defend against.” Nevertheless, Hoeneß still has “ideas about how we can hurt them”.
He is still without long-term absentees Nikolas Nartey and Dan-Axel Zagadou in the last two games of the campaign, even if both players are making good progress on the road to recovery. “Niko was back on the pitch today and was involved in parts of training again for the first time,” said Hoeneß. “We’re very hopeful that he will come through it well and will be back with us properly in the summer. Daxo is also on the right track and was recently with us for a check-up.” Josha Vagnoman, Li Egloff and Roberto Massimo, who are all carrying injuries, are the other players definitely missing on Friday evening.